Fourteen local restaurants have signed on to support United Way Guelph Wellington Dufferin and their NovemBurger event, which will raise funds for the organization’s programs that address food insecurity.
The delicious fundraiser was started by United Way of Thunder Bay, who have had much success with the event and provided the Guelph location with a toolkit to get started. Glenna Banda, executive director of United Way Guelph Wellington Dufferin, was excited to find that local restaurants jumped at the chance to support the cause.
“The fact that we have fourteen restaurants on board is incredible,” she says.
The fundraiser consists of local restaurants competing in a “battle of the burgers,” competing for the title of “Top NovemBurger.” $2 from every burger sold will be donated to United Way and their food insecurity programs across Guelph, Wellington County, and Dufferin County. The event’s presenting sponsor is Elinesky Schuett Private Wealth of RBC Dominion Securities.
United Way provides funding to community partners who are working on the frontlines to provide emergency food. Funds raised from NovemBurger will be distributed through their Rural Communities and From Poverty To Possibility focus areas, providing direct funding to local organizations like Hope House, Orangeville Food Bank, and Victorian Order of Nurses Meals on Wheels.
In addition to funding programs working to address food insecurity, United Way is also a partner in advocating for larger system change, including introducing basic income so that people have more money in their pockets to put food on their tables.
“What’s really exciting about United Way’s work is that we’re both addressing the emergency needs of today, but we’re also being proactive with addressing the root causes to prevent more needs in the future,” says Glenna.
Glenna says that one of the things she finds meaningful about United Way’s work is the collaboration. One example of this collaborative work was when United Way Guelph Wellington Dufferin gave The Seed, a local nonprofit, $10,000 for a pilot project. The Seed wanted to lease a refrigerated truck to drive to Second Harvest in Toronto and bring donated food back to the Guelph community. The pilot was a huge success and United Way went on to fund The Seed’s purchase of the truck, which has now brought over $1 million in food into Guelph annually.
“We were able to leverage that money and do something bigger for the community. To me that’s one of the greatest success stories that we’ve seen more recently,” says Glenna.
The participating restaurants in the NovemBurger event send Glenna and her team weekly reports, and within the first four days, they were astonished to see that 276 burgers had already been sold. The businesses have been having fun engaging in healthy competition on social media, calling each other out in posts and encouraging support of the fundraiser. There are others who have gotten excited about participating and posting about the burgers as well, including a local realtor who’s been doing burger reviews in his Instagram stories.
The United Way crew is doing their part to support the event too. They’ve made plans to hold their holiday party at Bar Mason at the end of the month. Glenna has ambitious plans to try all fourteen burgers before November closes, which she says her husband thinks is crazy. “I’m going to do as many as I can,” she says.
After all, it’s for a good cause.
In addition to enjoying a burger to support a local restaurant and a local charity, supporters can get involved by voting for their favourite NovemBurger online, joining in on the NovemBurger Passport journey, or hosting their own NovemBurger @ Work luncheon at their workplace.
For more information about the NovemBurger event, visit: www.unitedwayguelph.com/novemburger