How it works

For every gift card amount a person purchases from a participating restaurant, they’ll get back a gift card worth 80% of that amount. The remaining 20% will be put on a separate gift card made out to A Meal Today, A Meal Tomorrow and should be emailed to the address AMealTodayAMealTomorrow@gmail.com. For example, if a customer purchases a $50 gift card, they will get a $40 card for themselves and a $10 gift card will be made out to A Meal Today, A Meal Tomorrow.

Or a person can choose the Do-It-Yourself option and order e-gift cards from ANY Chicago restaurant – sending one to the AMealTodayAMealTomorrow@gmail.com. You can also mail restaurant gift cards to:

A Meal Today, A Meal Tomorrow

c/o Jessica Tansey

1723 N. Dayton Street

Chicago IL 60614  

Although the gift card can come from ANY Chicago restaurant, the customer can request which school community to support.

So, whichever way a gift card is purchased, the customer should make sure that the school community name is included somewhere on the gift card or in the email with the card.

The CPS Children First Fund will help us distribute these gift cards to local food-insecure students and families.

Chicagoans should reach out to the restaurants on the list to purchase gift cards, but should also reach out to their own favorite restaurants to get them to participate or just buy and send the e-gift cards themselves from any restaurant that sells gift cards. (See the How You Can Help section on our website for an easy email to send to restaurants or go to Donate). 

We will continually update the list of participating restaurants and provide campaign information on this website. 

In order to begin really helping all students, we have to make sure that their local communities support them. Let’s start by making sure they don’t have to go without enough food when they already have so much else to worry about, beyond a dangerous virus. Let’s do that by supporting Chicago restaurants as well.

-Jessica Tansey, Junior at Lincoln Park High School,

Founder, A Meal Today, A Meal Tomorrow