Looking for restaurant/food sellers for January events

When I'm not working or going out to eat, I'm very active as a volunteer with the Junior League of Chicago, and currently serve as one of the organization's Development VPs (a volunteer position).

Throw out any preconceived notions you may have about the Junior League. It's a non-profit organization of about 1500 women in the Chicagoland area who are committed to voluntarism. Through advocacy, education and training, and hard work, our members donate their time to helping at risk-women and children in the community (often in partnership with other non-profits in the Chicago area). We have also adopted "healthy lifestyles" as a signature issue, and it's reflected in many of the projects we work on. Just as an example of a few of the Junior League's recent efforts:
* On a single day in June, we collected 4,000 pounds of food for Common Pantry, one of Chicago's oldest food banks.
* We're partnering with the Neighbors Development Network to get kids in near west neighborhoods on the road to healthy living. Our volunteers are working with these kids to train for 5K races...many are lacing up their shoes & running side by side with them each week.
* Several Junior League projects partner with local recovery centers and halfway homes to work with women who have recently been released from jail, are addressing addiction issues or are trying to break the cycle of homelessness. We help them with job-hunting skills, self-esteem issues, and personal and financial management, while also encouraging healthy parent-child relationships.
* We actively lobby at the city, county and state level and team with other non-profits on issues related to women, kids and healthy lifestyles. Recently we were one of a number of organizations involved in a letter-writing campaign to Chicago school chiefs Jean-Paul Brizard in an effort to encourage him to follow a state law requiring physical education in schools. (State laws requires schools to offer PE, but schools can request a waiver. There were signs that Brizard would finally stop the trend of CPS requesting waivers. Unfortunately, CPS ultimately requested one.)

In January, we'd like to partner with local restaurants, bars, bakeries, grocers and more for a "Restaurant Month" (though Food Month might be a much more accurate description). If you own or manage a local food-oriented establishment, I'd love to talk to you to see how we could work together. We're envisioning several kinds of events:
* A food establishment would create a signature dish (drink, appetizer, cupcake, you name it) in honor of the Junior League, add it to their menu for the month & promote it to customers, with a portion of sales going back to the Junior League.
* Restaurants would create a special menu that would be offered one night during the month in honor of the Junior League. Depending on capacity, this menu might just be offered to our members & their guests, or might be offered to other customers as well.
* A cooking school, bake shop, cheese shop, etc., might offer a special class or tasting event for our members & their guests one night during the month.
* We'd love other unique ideas and opportunities that wouldn't normally be available. (For example, if your restaurant normally offers half-price appetizers & glasses of wine on Mondays, it might be difficult to generate excitement around a half-price appetizers & wine offering. On the other hand, the opportunity to get a hands-on cooking demo offered by your chef followed by a wine & appetizers pairing event would be novel & exciting.)
* It's not a requirement, but given our focus on healthy lifestyles as well as our commitment to working with at-risk women, we'd love to partner with businesses that are women-owed or operated, as well as businesses that share our interest in healthy living.

So what's in it for you & for the Junior League?
* We'd promote your business (and the event in particular) to our membership of more than 1000 women in the Chicagoland area (mostly professionals in the 25-45 age bracket). If you were hosting a one-time event, it would make sense to host it on a slower night so you could see a bump in business. In turn, we'd ask you to donate a portion of your sales to the Junior League.
* Our members are well-connected, so you could expect to see residual benefits above & beyond the event itself. For example, your offering would be promoted on sites like Facebook, and our members are usually share events with friends & create a lot of buzz leading up to and following an event. Beyond that, our members include lawyers, bankers, accountants, doctors, real estate agents and other professionals. They happily support businesses that support our organization.
* You'd have the opportunity know that your support helps the Junior League to continue our efforts within the Chicagoland community. We're thrilled to be celebrating our 100th anniversary this year and we hope to be making an impact for many more years going forward.

If you're interested, please PM me and we can discuss it offline. Also, I promise that I'll circle back to LTH once details are finalized so posters who are interested can partake in some of the offerings.