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The annual Houston Restaurant Weeks charity fundraising event is in full swing for local residents to contribute to the fight to end hunger in Houston.
The event's late founder, Cleverley Stone, started it all in 2003, combining her love for dining and her life's mission to defeat hunger in Houston. Her daughter Katie Stone has since taken up the event and told Houston Daily how the event got started.
"My mother understood that August was traditionally the slowest month of the year for restaurants in Houston and she had the idea to create the event to encourage business for the restaurants at the same time, adding the fundraiser aspect, which supports the Houston food banks," Stone told Houston Daily. "So it does two things at the same time, it generates revenue for the restaurants in Houston, and then it is also a fundraiser for the Houston Food Bank."
Local restaurants participating in the program create menus at different pricing tiers with each different menu donating a certain amount to the charity.
"HRW Meals are priced according to the program. We have $20 lunches and brunches, $35 dinners and $49 dinners," Stone told Houston Daily. "Depending on how many brunches, lunches and dinners the restaurants sell, they donate either $1, $3 or $5 per meal."
The event is now the largest annual fundraiser for America’s largest food bank, the Houston Food Bank, and for participating restaurants it has transformed what was previously the worst month of the year financially to the most profitable month, according to Stone.
Cleverley's passing in 2020 prompted a change in the donation process for the event, according to Culturemap Houston. While she was in charge of the event, participating restaurants where instructed to donate money directly to the Houston Food Bank.
After assuming her late mother's duties, Katie established the Cleverley Stone Foundation as a nonprofit corporation with her husband, Joseph Cappuccio and publicist Melissa Stevens, and instructed participants to donate to the foundation from which the money would be distributed to the food bank.
“Donations are made by participating restaurants, based on the total number of eligible meals sold during the event,” Stevens wrote in a statement, according to Culturemap Houston. “All donations from the restaurants are sent to the Cleverley Stone Foundation, which then sends all proceeds to the Houston Food Bank, minus the cost associated with administering and producing HRW.”
Houston Mayor Annise Parker honored Cleverley's work to fight hunger by declaring a Cleverley Stone Day in her honor in 2012.