Wednesday Night Just Got a Whole Lot Yummier!!

Tomorrow night, Wednesday April 29th, 2009 there are ton of great restaurants across the city participating in A Taste for Life. Proceeds of your dinner will go to Fife House, a great organization delivering services to people who suffer from HIV/AIDS. Their range of services help to ensure the well being and a healthy standard of life to people living with HIV/AIDS in the city of Toronto.

The concept is easy! Call and book a table at any of the participating restaurants, go enjoy a dinner out and 25% of your table’s dinner will go to benefit this worthy cause.

Rick Mercer is supporting it and so should you!

Here is a list of participating restaurants:

7 Numbers, Allen’s Restaurant, Barrio Lounge, Big Momma’s Boy, Boho, Byzantium, Café California Restaurant, Caju Restaurant, Churchmouse & Firkin, Clafouti Patisserie et Café, Crush Wine Bar Restaurant, Dangerous Dan’s Diner, Fire on the East Side, Forte Bistro and Lounge, Fresh on Spadina, Globe Bistro, Il Fornello, Ki Restaurant, Legends Bar and Eatery, Lettieri Espresso + Bar, Lolita’s Lust, Magic Oven (four locations), Mambo Lounge, Mercatto, Milagro Restaurant Y Cantina, Mitzi’s Sister, One Up Restaurant & Lounge, Panorama, Peartree Restaurant, Prerna, Queen Mother Cafe, Sambucas on Church, Sassafraz, Sit in Bangkok, Slack’s Restaurant & Bar, Southern Accent Restaurant, Starfish Oyster Bed & Grill, Tappo Wine Bar & Restaurant, Thai To-Go, The Boiler House, The Indian Hut, The Lakeview, The Red Lion, Toba, Toni Bulloni Tratoria Americana, Vdara, Veda-Healthy Indian Eatery & Takeout, Village Rainbow Restaurant, Woody’s, Zelda’s Restaurant & Bar.

For more information on the restaurants and contact information check out A Taste for Life’s website.

Okay, so its a big publicity stunt, but this week Hugh Jackman (of Wolverine fame) has pledged to donate $100,000 to charity through twitter.  Whichever 140 character tweet describing a charity is the most convincing wins the donation.  Checking out twitter this morning, I saw more discussion than charity pitches, though there were some for Tasmanian Devils with mouth cancer and inner city schools in Chicago.

Having recently joined twitter, the organization that I support, CAPAIDS, is going to try its had at selling itself in 140 characters or less.  I’m still working on my perfect pitch on their behalf, but I’ve only got until Friday so I better get on it.

Still so excited about how people are using twitter, a site that dedicates itself to a rather self absorbed question, to mobilize people for good.

The other day I had the chance to catch a sneak peak of the upcoming exhibit What Has Architecture Done for You Lately?, curated by my good friend Zahra Ebrahim and archiTEXT.  The exhibit, opening on April 15, is trying to break down the conventional wisdom that architecture is for architects.  Instead, it suggests that in order for architecture to be a vehicle for social and environmental change, everyone must be an active part of design.

It asks “If a 5 year old were to design a refugee camp, what would it look like?”

One of archiTEXT’s most recent projects, the Toronto Idea Exchange, highlights their approach.  More than 100 people, including designers, teenagers, and bureaucrats, got together to generate ideas to tackle poverty in Ontario.  Participants went on to make physical models of what the architecture of equality (as opposed to poverty) might look like.  From there, archiTEXT is helping to write policy for the Ontario Poverty Reduction Strategy, answering questions about how architecture can be used to address poverty issues in Ontario.

In the WHADFYL exhibit, Ebrahim will be asking some similar questions about architecture’s role in global issues like health, economics, and the environment.  Maybe in the future we’ll see archiTEXT in somewhere like Iraq, getting kids, soldiers and government together to lighten the load of rebuilding, and making sure that the people who have a vested interest in architecture (ie: people inhabiting the spaces) are involved.

The exhibit opens tomorrow, April 15 at the Design Exchange and runs until May 31.  Come for opening night, starting at 6pm on April 15.  Wear hot pink.

If you can’t make it, check out the live Twitter feed from the exhibit here.

What if you could give money to an organization and actually choose who received that money. Imagine, an online database of people in need. You could go to a profile, see what their need was and choose them based on your personal preference. Kiva, an online database of entrepreneurs seeking microcredit loans does just that. I came across this unique fundraising tool and its innovative person to person lending program allows people to track the person’s progress online. Through Kiva’s partners the lender can transfer money online that goes directly to an entrepreneur in a developing country. I have been a supporter of microcredit loans for a long time and I found this website to be inspiring. Giving a donor a choice to invest in someone, rather then simply donating money is something that I think will catch on. The website has received a lot of press, garnering accolades as one of the top websites of 2008 by Time and Women’s Health.

On another note, I’ve changed my homepage from the BBC World News Page for OneWorld.net, a website devoted to international issues and has a lot of popping headlines on development, and aims to “provide the news and views of over 1600 organizations that are promoting human rights awareness and fighting poverty worldwide”.