Chicago restaurant serving up Ethiopian fare and supporting a good cause
CHICAGO (CBS) -- If your family just isn't about cooking from scratch, or you just want to try out something new, you can do that and help raise money for a good cause.
Demera, an Ethiopian restaurant in Uptown, is entering the third year of raising money to aid the humanitarian crisis in Tigray, Ethiopia.
Since 2007, chef Tigist Reda has been creating beautiful spreads of Ethiopian food at Demera; bringing people together over heaping platters of meat and veggie stews, served atop freshly made injera bread.
Reda was born and raised in Ethiopia, and her restaurant feels like an extension of that, bringing a bit of her hometown to Chicago.
So in 2020, when war broke out in Ethiopia's Tigray region, Reda said, "We couldn't reach our family; was my parents were there, my siblings, all extended family, nieces, nephew. We don't know if they're alive or dead."
It started as an internal rebellion, morphed into an ethnic conflict, and is now a famine, and the region was thrust under a siege that lasted two years.
"Where medication and food couldn't go in, people were not getting their salaries for over 10 months. On top of it, they were being bombed through planes and drones," Reda said. "One thing I know is to cook and to feed people. It's like, what can I do?"
She began fundraising by doing popups and galas, raising more than $110,000 with just a couple of events.
Reda's activism caught the attention of two-time James Beard Award-winning chef Sarah Stegner.
"When I heard she raised $110,000 by herself, I thought, I've got to help. I've got to help," Stegner said. "She knows people that have been killed, and it's just devastating. And I thought, okay, let's try, let's do this."
The two quickly teamed up to keep the fundraising going, and tapped in 15 of their chef friends for this year's event, Demera's "Evening of Hope" at Guild Row.
"Response from the chefs was immediate. They're like, yes, let me check my calendar. I'm on it," Stegner said.
Each of the chefs is making an original dish, using Reda's Ethiopian spice blends "In stations, and then we'll have spice, corner where you can buy your spices," Reda said.
All of the proceeds go to Health Professionals Network for Tigray, a non-profit for which Reda sits on the board of directors.
"Our main course is to make sure there is medication in the refugee camps for women and children in the Tigray hospitals, as well as food," Reda said. "Because women were impacted a lot through gender-based violence and other things."
Despite a ceasefire having been signed just over a year ago, the humanitarian crisis is far from over.
"All the hospitals are just empty or destroyed. Schools are empty or destroyed. So there isn't any social services going on," Reda said. "How is it like a million people are displaced? Nobody knows. How is it 6 million people are under siege for two years? No one knows in the street. So all of that needs to stop, not just for Tigray, but for all of the world. Like we all need to be voice for each other."
Reda is using her voice and her kitchen and her friends to help in the best way they know how.
"Building a sense of community and bringing people together, the money's just, it's going to flow in," Stegner said.
Demera's Evening of Hope still has tickets available online, starting at $85, with all proceeds going to the a Health Professionals Network for Tigray, and they'll have doctors who work on the ground there available to share their experiences and answer questions.
