Eat Out Thursday. Help Fill the Gap of Withheld Funding.

Ever eaten at Eleven Eleven Mississippi, Sqwires, Little Fox, or Union 30 at Hotel St. Louis? Then make your dining experience pull double duty tomorrow.

This Thursday, June 12th, Vivent Health will host Dining Out For Life, an event to raise essential healthcare funds for St. Louisans affected by HIV. More than 20 beloved area restaurants will donate a portion of their proceeds to HIV/AIDS care and prevention.

Dining out on this day becomes a powerful act of solidarity right as the Trump administration launches another attack on federal HIV programs: withholding millions of dollars in HIV prevention funds.

Health departments across the country are reporting they still have not received CDC HIV prevention grant awards committed for this year, even though they were included in the federal budget passed by Congress months ago. These withheld grants support critical HIV prevention services such as free HIV/STI testing, access to pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) and post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP), and syringe service programs (SSPs).

If funds aren’t released soon, many health departments and community-based organizations will be forced to reduce or stop providing these essential programs and services. Vivent Health is one of the nation’s leading providers of HIV care and treatment, serving more than 4,300 St. Louisans living with HIV and thousands more who are affected by this disease.

Vivent Health volunteers and staff stock food pantry.

Some of the restaurants participating in Dining Out For Life include Eleven Eleven Mississippi, Hamilton's Urban Steakhouse, and Baileys’ Restaurants. Core sponsors include Stifel-Russell Wealth Management, Commerce Bank, St. Louis Blues, and Outfront Media.

Dining Out For Life® is an annual fundraising event involving the generous participation of volunteers, corporate sponsors and restaurants. The concept is simple: Restaurants donate a generous percent of their sales to a local HIV service organization, and the local HIV service organization fills participating restaurants with diners. Each year, more than 50 local HIV service organizations partner with 2,400+ participating restaurants, 4,100+ volunteers, and 300,000+ diners to raise over $4.5 million for people living with HIV/AIDS in the United States and Canada. Best part? All funds raised through a city’s Dining Out For Life event stay in that city to provide help and hope to people living with or impacted by HIV/AIDS. To learn more visit: https://www.diningoutforlife.com/about/

About Vivent Health

Rooted in our legacy organizations’ commitments to serve the people most impacted by HIV, Vivent Health delivers high-quality, integrated HIV healthcare, social services, and prevention.  We work to advance health equity and justice so everyone impacted by HIV can live their best and healthiest life.  The people we serve achieve some of the best health outcomes in the nation.

Vivent Health currently serves more than 18,500 people living with and vulnerable to HIV and sexually transmitted infections, as well as people at risk for opioid overdose. Vivent Health currently has clinics in Chicago, IL; Denver, CO; Detroit and Ypsilanti, MI; St. Louis and Kansas City, MO; Austin, TX; and 10 cities throughout Wisconsin including Milwaukee.

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