TWO local restaurants, the Herdmanston Lodge and the Duke, have extended the activities organised for the ongoing Guyana Restaurant Week (GRW) to the girls from the St. Ann’s Orphanage.

“This is our way of giving back but I think, in a big way, it brings hope to the girls,” President of the Tourism and Hospitality Association of Guyana (THAG) and Representative of the Duke, Mitra Ramkumar said. And this was the first time that this has been done for the now popular ‘Restaurant Week’.

The President explained to the Guyana Chronicle that the idea to include the girls from the home in the usually well-received GRW came from the feedback received from people on social media.

This feedback, he explained, encouraged the body to think about those persons who might not usually have the opportunity to experience the best of Guyanese cuisine offered during this period. The Survival Supermarket also chipped in to provide a hamper for the orphanage too.

For the next season of GRW, which will be held later this year, Ramkumar noted that he hopes it will be done “bigger” and in a “more organised manner” where more orphanages and persons would be able to benefit. He also expressed his hope that more restaurants would come onboard this initiative.

“We want to do it in a spread instead of just two restaurants… because we really believe that we must leave no one behind and that we must always think of the vulnerable in society,” he highlighted.