Dine Out fundraiser surpasses goal

Published 3:56 pm Thursday, July 24, 2025

The 2025 Dine-Out fundraiser inspired many community member to go out to breakfast, lunch and/or dinner on June 5 this year. It also raised approximately $8,500 for the Madras Community Food Bank.

In the fundraiser, local restaurants contribute a portion of their receipts for the date. This was the third consecutive year the local food pantry conducted the event, and it was their biggest yet.

“We made over $8,000, and we have a couple of restaurants still to count, so we should be around $8,500,” said Les Weider, lead organizer of the fundraiser.

In 2023, the first year of the Dine-Out drive, the pantry raised about $7,100. Last year, about $7,500 was raised. This year marked a substantial jump.

The event included 31 food business and also a couple of non-food businesses contributed, included a large donation by Chevrolet GMC of Madras.

“The restaurant business isn’t a high profit business,” said Weider. “We know that, and we leave it up to the restaurants to decide how much to contribute.”

One restaurant “goes above and beyond,” noted Weider, and that’s La Pasada, a Madras Mexican food restaurant, which contributed $1,000 or more.

“They keep outdoing themselves,” said Weider, of the La Pasada managers Laura and Eric Hernandez. “It’s awesome to see something like that.”

Other keys to success this year was getting two taverns in Crooked River Ranch to participate, and two Terrebonne businesses as well.

As for the future, Weider says having the event coincide with First Thursday in Madras worked out well this year, and he expected that will occur again next year. He also hopes to enhance the publicity of the event and potentially have sandwich boards by the businesses participating on the day of the event.