While the Okanagan deals with another hard wildfire season, one Vancouver restaurant is putting its menu to work for it. Provence Marinaside is donating 5% of every Tomato Festival dish sold — retroactive all the way back to August 1 — to the SOS Wildfire Response Fund, which supports communities affected by this year’s Okanagan wildfires. They’ve also extended the Tomato Festival itself through mid-September, so there’s more time for the donation to add up.
Why this kind of giving matters
The Okanagan and Metro Vancouver are tied together in ways that go beyond road trips and wine country weekends — a lot of Vancouverites have family, friends, or a favourite small town out there, and wildfire seasons hit all of it hard, year after year. When a local restaurant builds relief into its actual menu instead of just posting about it, that’s the kind of community response that’s easy to overlook and worth pointing out.
It also means supporting the fund doesn’t require writing a separate cheque or digging up a donation link — it happens automatically if you were already planning to eat out this month. Retroactive to August 1 means even a Tomato Festival dish you already ordered counts toward the total.
How to be part of it
Head to Provence Marinaside before the Tomato Festival wraps up in mid-September, order anything off that menu, and 5% goes straight to wildfire relief. It’s a small ask for anyone who was going to grab dinner in Yaletown anyway — and a good reminder that supporting Vancouver’s restaurant scene and supporting communities outside the city aren’t mutually exclusive.
Know another local business doing something similar for wildfire relief? Send it our way — this is exactly the kind of community effort we want to keep highlighting.
