Print

Email story

Comment

Email editor

Serving up warm side of charity with meals

Area restaurants and servers, and even their customers, back several fundraisers to aid tsunami victims.

By SHERRI DAY
Published January 28, 2005

In retrospect, Tapanee Damrongwatanasuk aimed low.

Damrongwatanasuk, who owns Royal Palace Thai Restaurant on Howard Avenue with her three sisters, wanted to raise $20,000 to aid tsunami victims in their native Thailand. To reach that goal, the sisters decided to open the restaurant on Mondays, their normal day of rest. All proceeds would go to Thailand.

For four Mondays in January, the restaurant's staff and a small, dedicated cadre of volunteers worked without pay. Waiters even chipped in their tips.

Earlier this week, Damrongwatanasuk said they had raised more than $40,000.

"I'm so happy," she said. "I'm so impressed. People are so nice."

Damrongwatanasuk's fundraiser is one of many local efforts to aid tsunami victims. Bay area restaurants have perhaps been most creative in their fundraising efforts.

Thai Thani, a new Channelside restaurant, offered its patrons a free lunch and dinner buffet Monday. The staff encouraged diners to make a donation for tsunami relief and raised $3,500, owner Nat Sukitjavanich said.

Sunday afternoon, servers from several local restaurants will host Waiting for Relief at St. Bart's Island House on Howard Avenue. The menu will feature food from several local restaurants including Ceviche, Timpano Italian Chophouse and Viva La Frida.

The servers will also stage a silent auction featuring jewelry, artwork and vacations. The Patel Foundation for Global Understanding, a nonprofit organization with health programs in Southeast Asia, will ensure that proceeds reach tsunami victims.

"They came up with their own unifying idea and put this thing together," said Sigrid Tidmore, the Foundation's executive director. "We didn't come to them. They came to us."

At Royal Palace, which initially pledged to open for four Mondays in January, the community's response overwhelmed Damrongwatanasuk. Not only have diners flooded the restaurant on Mondays - on Jan. 10, there was a two-hour wait for dinner - but, several patrons volunteered.

Regulars Rick Croup and Jim Hollington decided to pitch in. The men, both South Tampa real estate agents, gave up their lunch breaks for several Mondays to bus tables, fill water glasses and deliver orders.

"It was just an opportunity to give something back here locally but yet abroad," said Hollington, who lives in Carrollwood.

Croup was most impressed with patrons' patience.

"The people eating there, they actually are contributing," said Croup, a Davis Islands resident. "They're suffering a little bit, too, because I'm filling up their water. I'm not quite as fast as someone who normally works there."

Damrongwatanasuk plans to use the money she raised to build five houses for needy families in Thailand. She said her husband, Randall Knowles, will personally deliver the money to a Buddhist monk in Phuket. Knowles plans to work with the monk to build the houses and use the rest of the money to help needy families away from tourist areas.

For Royal Palace Thai, the work continues.

The restaurant will open for one more fundraiser Monday. Damrongwatanasuk, who could still use volunteers to help, forgot there were five Mondays in January.

"It's fine," Damrongwatanasuk said. "We're happy to do it."

Sherri Day can be reached at 813-226-3405 or sday@sptimes.com

[Last modified January 27, 2005, 09:33:08]