For two months every year – November and December a voluntary DINEAID $2 is added to the table bill at no cost or hassle to your restaurant.

When dining out, $2 on the bill is neither here nor there – maybe half the price of that final cup of coffee when you’re replete with the main and dessert.

But if thousands of diners added an extra $2 to their restaurant tab as part of their Christmas season celebrations, and all that money went to charity…now that’s an idea worth raising your glasses to.

In a nutshell, that’s the DineAid concept.

It’s an idea that Auckland-based chef/restaurateur Mark Gregory has brought here from Britain. Mark recently returned home to New Zealand after 18 years of work to top-end British restaurants. Over there the StreetSmart scheme launched in 1999 has grown from small beginnings to one where the token gestures of diners last year netted a massive $NZ2.5 million for charity. With a similar amount being additionally raised in the Australia, South Africa and the USA. He’s working hard together with fellow trustees Don Fletcher, Warren Bias and Rob Cooke to get restaurants on board in New Zealand so that the ‘voluntary add on $2 for DineAid campaign running in November and December will add up to a Christmas bonus for local charities such as City Missions, Project K, Stars, FYD, Kidz First, Kiwi Can.

The focus of the fundraising is families at risk and young training and mentoring.

Around 110 restaurants/bars and cafes have chosen to become part of DINEAID, including the Chow group, Euro, Logan Brown, Restaurant Schwass, Antoines, Partingtons, Vinnies, Boulcott St Bistro, The Engine Room, Monsoon Poon, Shed 5, Vista Café, The General Practitioner and The Tasting Room, Lonestar group, Pier 19, Mecca cafes….

“Our aim is to have 150 restaurants and cafés involved this first year,” Mark says – To help get DineAid ‘cooking’, restaurants should visit www.dineaid.org.nz or email christine@dineaid.org.nz).

And hopefully diners celebrating Christmas with a staff party, friends or family lunch or night out will remember that for some families, there’s not even enough money to put basic food on the table let alone fine fare.