Chow down for a cause on April 24

Denver is celebrating 20 years of Dining Out for Life, a day where 25 percent of proceeds from food sales in 60 cities across North America specifically for agencies helping people with HIV or AIDS. Here in the Denver/Boulder area the proceeds benefit Project Angel Heart. With more than 250 locations to choose from, diners are able to help the nearly 1,000 people per week that Project Angel Heart delivers meals to.

The Dining Out for Life event happens on April 24, with the list of restaurants being available to the public on April 2. The list can be found at
www.diningoutforlife.com/denver at that time.

“One of the unique things with this event with it being the 20th anniversary, we still have two restaurants that have been participating the entire 20 years and that’s Racines and The Cherry Cricket,” said Jessica Milnes, development director at Project Angel Heart.

Milnes also said this is Project Angel Heart’s largest event of the year, estimating that 80,000-90,000 people locally will dine out on that day, and expecting to raise more than $350,000. This total comes from the help of restaurant participation, individual contributions as well as ones from corporate and community sponsors.

“Project Angel Heart hosts the largest event internationally, so we’re really proud of that,” Milne said.

In order to be a part of Dining Out for Life, diners simply need to go to a participating restaurant. According to Milnes there will be volunteers from Project Angel Heart to act as ambassadors and answer any questions have about the organization. People will also have a chance to enter into a drawing to win a $2,500 shopping spree from Whole Foods.

“We hand out envelopes the entire day at some of the participating restaurants, so they have the opportunity to enter that way. We’re also doing text to give this year so people can give mobilely this year and they will be automatically entered that way,” Milnes said.

Project Angel Heart was founded in 1991 to help bring meals to people living with HIV/AIDS. The organization has since expanded to help people with any life threatening illness, and plans on expanding even more.

“We are actually in the process of what we are calling a grow 30 plan, which we started in 2012 and we will plan throughout 2015. Grow 30 is essentially that we are increasing the number of people we serve by 30 percent,” Milnes said.