To Do: Yelp Helps

Fringe Park. Photo Rachel Levine Fringe Park.2015. Photo Rachel Levine

Yelp and the Montreal Fringe Festival are pairing up once again for the 5th edition of the Yelp Helps Party at Parc des Amériques while celebrating 25 years of the Fringe Festival. This joint venture is part festival and fair, while promoting non-profit organizations in Montreal. Over fifteen non-profits will be recruiting volunteers and selling the merits of their organizations while Jevto Bond, a 6′ 6″ chef serves up Thai BBQ and cooking lessons. McAuslan Beer and Barefoot wines will provide refreshments to quench your thirst -for free to all those who use their Yelp App to check in at the party.

In keeping with the theme of food and nourishment, some of the organisations that will be there are Welcome Hall Mission , La Tablée des Chefs and Chic Resto Pop. Mission Bon Acceuil /Welcome Hall Mission will have a few carnival and skill testing games at their booth. Come test your brains and brawn and realise you have a skill set that can be used to help this 123 year old Montreal NPO. Among its myriad of services, they are probably most well known for their food bank, where they provide twice-weekly distribution of groceries and ancillary services to over 4000 families in Montreal.

Chic Resto Pop is a social economy enterprise founded in 1989 in the Hochelaga-Maisonneuve district. In addition to offering low-cost meals to more than 1,300 people a day, the company helps the unemployed to enter the labor market and society through a range of training services and development of employability.

La Tablée des Chefs mission is to feed families in need and to educate future generations by developing their food autonomy. One of their more well-known ventures is their Sustainable Food Brokerage Service. They serve as a liaison between people in need and food surplus producers, particularly the donors from the HRI (Hotels, Restaurants and Institutions) sector and the organizations that distribute them.

Food is not the only attraction of this event. There will be social justice initiatives like the Yellow Door whose mission it is to empower young people to initiate and engage in community and creative projects that promote social inclusion, combat urban isolation across all generations, and spark positive societal change. Digital literacy for women and youth is the MO of Ladies Learning Code and  Apathy is Boring a non-partisan charitable organization that uses art and technology to educate youth about democracy.

For a complete list of participants, please visit the Yelp Helps events page.

The party is from 6-9 p.m. at La Parc des Ameriques between Rachel and St. Laurent.