Food for Thought guests will sample food from 22 Austin restaurants
The 18th annual Food for Thought event is coming up on September 12, 2013 at Austin Music Hall. From 6-9 PM, 650 guests will enjoy food samples created by 22 of the best chefs from prominent restaurants in Austin.
This palette-pleasing evening serves an important purpose. It’s the biggest fundraiser of the year for Communities In Schools, a non-profit that offers dropout prevention services and programs to students at 56 Central Texas public school campuses. Last year, 99% of the students served by Communities In Schools stayed in school or graduated.
What to Expect at Food for Thought
The following well-loved Austin restaurants will be serving delicious food samples at Food for Thought 2013:
- Alamo Drafthouse Cinema
- El Alma Café
- Benji’s Cantina
- The Carillon Restaurant
- Chez Zee American Bistro
- Congress Restaurant
- Cuvée Coffee
- The Driskill Grill
- Garrido’s
- Goodall’s Kitchen & Bar
- Hudson’s on the Bend
- Jack Allen’s Kitchen
- Málaga Tapas & Bar
- Moonshine Patio & Bar
- Parkside Projects
- Salty Sow
- Siena Ristorante Toscana
- Sticky Toffee Pudding Company
- Stories Fine Dining at Hyatt Lost Pines
- TRACE
- Truluck’s Seafood, Steak & Crab House
- Z’Tejas Southwestern Grill
Congressman Michael McCaul and his wife Linda, along with Tyson Tuttle, CEO of Silicon Labs, are the chairs for this year’s event.
CIS board members Laura Templeton and Edna Butts
Why Communities In Schools Matters
I had the privilege of attending a Communities In Schools (CIS) open house at Lanier High School this past May. It was a gripping and emotional experience because I saw firsthand how CIS has changed the lives of young people in the Austin community. I learned that kids who don’t graduate from high school are twice as likely to be unemployed and eight times more likely to be incarcerated.
Communities In Schools works to address the hurdles that keep kids from attending school, like behavioral issues, teen pregnancy and financial difficulties. Lanier HS principal Kathy Ryan said pointedly, “If I didn’t have CIS, I don’t know what would happen to those kids.”
At Lanier, CIS runs a leadership program for at-risk males, called XY-Zone. There is a staff member who works specifically with struggling freshmen, and another who works with pregnant and parenting students. There are three full-time staff members, supported by a group of interns.
At the end of the Lanier event, five students came in to speak to our group of visitors (names have been altered to protect the students). Isabel told us that she got connected to CIS in 6th grade when her parents were going through a divorce. Gabir got involved as a freshman, after immigrating from Iraq. Quade spent time in jail before being introduced to CIS. He had this to say about the program: “It helped me change who I was and become a better person.”
What You Can Do
Stay informed about Communities In Schools. This non-profit is working hard to change individual lives and make our community better. There are volunteer opportunities available.
Food for Thought cuisine
If you are interested in sponsoring the upcoming Food for Thought event, call (512) 464-9762 or email Special Events Coordinator Laura Hayes. Tickets are allotted based on the sponsorship package you choose. Maybe you can get together with coworkers or friends to make a huge difference through sponsorship, and then you can enjoy this fun event together.
All funds raised through the event will go toward Communities In Schools’ dropout prevention services and programs in Central Texas.
@QuasiBrit asks:
Had you heard of Communities In Schools before reading this article?
This is a really wonderful event and I used to work with Communities in Schools in Austin. They help at-risk youth to make it through school with a support system that often doesn’t exist elsewhere in their lives. I am sure that you remember high school as being a challenging time in your own identity formation and maybe some of you went to counselor. What CIS does for kids is it provides and links them with services whether they are a teen boy who is failing in school and they join XY Zone and learn about what it means to be an independent adult and the value of team work. Or maybe they join one of the pregnant parenting groups to teach the kids about resources to help mom’s who are expecting.
I know in my time with CIS, their services were sorely needed. We had a two person office at the time that helped counsel and guide hundreds of kids from Lanier. It often was touching to see just how much our efforts made a difference in the lives of the kids we worked with.
William Schroeder, MA, LPC
JustMind.org
@williamschroederlpc:disqus , thank you so much for taking the time to comment with your insight from personal experience. I am still getting to know CIS, but I am impressed with their professionalism, infused with a personal touch that teens can relate to.