Dax Restaurant on Pembrooke Street in Dublin City is celebrating 10 years’ in business in 2014. After seeing the plight of the homeless on RTE’s Prime Time in December Olivier Meisonnave is committing his restaurant to raise funds for the Dublin Simon Community by donating €2 every time a table dines in Dax Restaurant this year.
In December RTE showed two programmes on homelessness in Ireland. Sat with his young family the plight of the homeless struck a chord with Olivier. The programmes graphically demonstrated how not everyone had survived as well as he had over the past decade. This spurred him into action and contact was made with the Dublin Simon Community to announce a commitment to raise funds for the homeless in 2014.
During 2014 Olivier has committed to donate €2 for each table that dines in his restaurant. "On the face of it, it’s not a huge sum per table; but, over a year it will raise a substantial amount. When you consider that restaurant margins still average about 2-3%, this is a meaningful commitment by the restaurant," said Olivier.
The €2 commitment is not the only way the restaurant is helping out. From time to time the Simon Community looks for donations of cutlery, crockery, pots and pans, glassware, towels, napkins, bed linen, tables, chairs and furniture to furnish existing living accommodation and new homes for their clients. Olivier has appealed directly to his colleagues in the hospitality industry for such contributions.
Dublin Simon Community works to prevent and address homelessness in Dublin, Kildare and Wicklow. They provide services at all stages of homelessness and enable people to move to a place they can call home.
“At Simon, we listen to people who turn to us for help and do everything we can to support them to move out of homelessness into independent living,” reads the charity's website.
Olivier hopes that the contribution from Dax will be adopted, in their own way, by hotels & restaurants across Dublin and Ireland to solve an issue that was never dealt with when Ireland had the money and means in plenty.
Image Left to Right: Sam McGuinness (CEO Dublin Simon Community), Mary Murray (Corporate Accounts Executive, Dublin Simon Community), Olivier Meisonnave (Patron and Owner of Dax Restaurant) at the launch of Dax’s 2 euro per table fund raising commitment for the Dublin Simon Community (see link below for hi-res images) Photo credit: Harry Weir Photography
