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15K restaurants deploy everything from unicorns to engaged employees to fight hunger

Eat out so hungry kids can eat. It’s a simple notion with a huge possible impact, as nearly 15,000 restaurants nationwide join the effort to provide meals for the 1 in 5 American children who cannot count on their next meal.

September 7, 2016 by S.A. Whitehead — Food Editor, Net World Media Group

Eat out so hungry kids can eat. It's a simple notion with a huge possible impact, as nearly 15,000 restaurants nationwide join the effort to provide meals for the 1 in 5 American children who cannot count on their next meal.

If there's one thing that's been well-established by reams of research on the most popular food service concepts, it's that today's diners want their restaurant meals to do more than just fill their own bellies. It's one of the reasons so many restaurateurs have thrown their support behind the No Kid Hungry campaign: They want to help and they know their customers do, too.

And they have helped. A lot. Today, Dine Out for No Kid Hungry is the nation's largest restaurant-led initiative fighting childhood hunger. In the eight years since its launch, restaurants have raised $37 million for the cause.

That massive level of restaurant participation promises to kick up quite a bit of business this month for the eating-out industry nationally, as eateries get their drives into high gear to raise money for hungry youngsters.

The central concept of all the individual restaurant campaigns is that every dollar they collect for No Kid Hungry, the program will provide 10 meals to one child through partnerships connecting kids in need with food where they live, learn and play.

It's no accident that the campaign takes place in the back-to-school month of September (which is also National Hunger Awareness Month). Research shows that hungry kids have a hard time learning, which further disadvantages the underprivileged child later in life.

If you thought school lunch programs for the needy filled that meal gap during the school year, think again. According to Share Our Strength, the organization behind No Kid Hungry, only about half of kids who qualify for free school lunch get breakfast.

This is a huge problem, Share Our Strength said in an informational news release about the program. The organization cited research demonstrating that kids who get something to eat beforetheir school day starts also:

miss 1.5 fewer days of school each year;
test 17.5 percent higher on math evaluations;
have a 20 percent greater likelihood of graduating high school.

These findings are among the many reasons why another goal of No Kid Hungry is to prompt more school districts, cities and states to provide breakfast every school day at every school.

Campaigns feature everything from LTOs to unicorns

With 15,000 food service participants in the September initiative, there's a lot of creativity going into individual restaurants' campaigns. One that stood out for this website's editorial department was launched by that Valhalla of frozen dessert concoctions, Orange Leaf.

The Oklahoma-based chain is bringing in the Unicorn, that mythical creature representing all things good and pure, to help raise funds. Orange Leaf built its "Generation Original" campaign around the unique creativity of kids. Orange Leaf is offering customers two unicorn-based augmented reality coloring sheets, as well as special Swizzle Dine Out week menu items and other online donation opportunities.

For a $1 donation, kids get a coloring sheet and the chance to make the chain's orange unicorn come to life via AR. Users simply download a mobile app and point their mobile device at the finished colored unicorn. And voila! The mythical creature comes to virtual life.

"It's tough for a child to develop into their unique, awesome selves if they are worried about their next meal," Geoff Goodman, president of Orange Leaf Frozen Yogurt said in the news release. "Our goal with Generation Original is to raise awareness of the issue and to help eradicate hunger for the next generation of original kids."

The chain is also selling T-shirts for donations. These come with a one-time use BOGO coupon promoting Swizzle froyo dessert purchases in the third week of September. Orange Leaf hopes to raise enough through the campaign to provide 250,000 meals to hungry kids.

A nearly endless variety of other restaurants are participating in the drive, as well. These include dining sub-categories from breakfast-based (First Watch and IHOP) to international concepts (Pei Wei and Noodles & Company). For the September drive, Noodles & Company expanded its yearlong "20 for $2" fundraising campaign that puts a nickel in the No Kids Hungry donation box for every kids meal purchased.

Hungry kids aren't the only winners

Restaurateurs participating in No Kids Hungry will tell you that kids aren't the only winners. At Corner Bakery Cafe locations, participation in the campaign has made a huge difference for employees as well.

In the eight years it's participated in the drive, the cafe has raised more than $1.5 million for the effort. According to the No Kids Hungry website, Corner Bakery said participation has pushed critical elements of employee engagement and job satisfaction to new levels.

And they've got the numbers to prove it. Since partnering with the No Kids Hungry organization in 2008, employee loyalty scores for the Corner Bakery Cafe have risen to 80 percent from a previous level of 50 percent. Additionally, the number of employees there who said they feel pride working at the restaurant rose from 62 percent to 90 percent in the most recent data.

About S.A. Whitehead

Pizza Marketplace and QSRweb editor Shelly Whitehead is a former newspaper and TV reporter with an affinity for telling stories about the people and innovative thinking behind great brands.