Over the coming weeks, we’re excited to be bringing you a special blog series to celebrate our Food for Thought campaign, which runs throughout September and October every year.

So what is Food for Thought?

It’s a great excuse to enjoy a delicious meal with family and friends and make a difference at the same time!

Enjoying good food is an important part of many cultures – bringing friends, families and even communities together like nothing else. This September and October, we’re inviting you to organise your own food-tastic event to raise much-needed funds for families living in poverty.

Last year Opportunity supporters just like you feasted on pancake breakfasts, noodle nights and Hawaiian luau parties just to name a few. Get on board with Food for Thought this year and help us see 100 fundraisers host events to raise a total of $100,000! That equates to 1,429 mothers being given the small loans they need to help their families leave poverty behind. Find out more here.

To help get you ready to cook up some change, we’ve organised special Food for Thought launch dinners at renowned restaurants in Brisbane, Melbourne and Sydney from 18-20 August. And the good news is that registrations are still open!

At the launch dinners, we’ll be live-streaming a cooking demonstration from mother-of-four and Opportunity client Dina Lava in the Philippines. Dina is an entrepreneur who began her business knocking on office doors with a basket of pastries. Thanks to some small loans, she now runs a renowned catering business, function centre and bakery. She’s even been awarded the Most Outstanding Businesswoman by her local Department of Trade and Industry.

Filipino cuisine is inspired by the melting pot of different cultures spread across its 7,000 islands. Seafood, chicken, pork, citrus fruits, garlic, onion, tomatoes and rice are some of the key ingredients that make up the Philippines’ most popular dishes. For example, there’s Bangus (milkfish), Lechon (whole roasted pig), Adobo (meat marinated in bay leaves, soy sauce, onions and vinegar) and Halo-halo (a shaved ice and milk dessert with beans, jelly and fruit added).

We hope you can join us at one of our launch dinners to see Dina cook up a storm but if you’re not able to make it, get on board and start your own Food for Thought fundraiser today!