Madras Community Food Pantry got $9,000 from its fundraiser
Published 6:34 pm Tuesday, June 30, 2026
As the month comes to a close, event organizers say they have met their goal of raising $9,000 for the food pantry during the Madras Dine-Out.
The Madras Community Food Pantry’s annual Great Madras Community Dine-Out event is designed to raise money to cover its operational costs.
Les Weidner, the secretary for the Madras Community Food Pantry board of directors and the organizer of the event, said the event was a success.
“As of this morning, we hit our $9,000 goal with a late contribution from a volunteer of ours at the pantry,” Weidner said.
Weidner said the volunteers had committed to filling the gap in funding so the pantry would reach the funding goal they had set before the event was put on.
In addition to that assistance, Weidner said they also expect some late donations, so they will be exceeding their goal once all the money is accounted for.
“I had wonderful positive feedback from so many people about the value of the event and how much everyone enjoyed it,” Weidner said. “It truly is a community-wide event, and I think we’ll keep doing it as long as we can.”
Several Madras, Culver, Metolius and Terrebone restaurants participated in the event, and they were able to decide for themselves how much to donate back to the pantry.
“As usual, as it’s been the last three years, the smallest restaurant in Madras gave the largest donation,” Weidner said.
This restaurant, La Posada, is located at 84 S.W. Fourth St. in Madras and offers various Mexican foods from 10 a.m. to 11 p.m. every day.
Weidner also said the Chevrolet GMC of Madras donated the largest amount of money from a merchant involved in the event.
Madras Bowl & Pizza, The Human Bean and Lao Teng Thai Kitchen all donated 50% of their profits from the Great Madras Community Dine-Out on June 4.
The businesses involved in the event are not given guidelines for how much to donate from the event.
“Restaurants, that’s a tough business really,” Weidner said. “That’s why we do it that way. All restaurants are different. They’re all different structures, many are just family-owned and there are things that come up even between the time of the Dine Out and the time that we collect that interfere with that.”
For the Dine-Out’s fifth year, Weidner said they may try to reach even further and hope for $10,000 in donations.
