“It’s not how much we give but how much love we put into giving.” – Mother Teresa

In the past, we’ve tried to do our bit to help the community, and the support we’ve received for our efforts from our restaurant partners and users has always been nothing short of amazing. Just over 12 months ago, we were able to accomplish this and then this in Chennai, thanks to thousands of people coming together and using Zomato to help others who were stuck in the floods. The outpouring of support we got from our users thanking us for the opportunity created by our platform to lend their support to a worthy cause, was as inspiring as it was humbling.

We pray that such things never happen again.

But all this time, we’ve been thinking about how Zomato can bring people together and help them contribute towards a common cause. The right time to drive change is when everything is running smoothly, rather than only reacting when disaster strikes.

Building on that thought, we’re setting something more enduring in motion – an ongoing initiative we’re calling ‘Turn the Tables’. Think of it as our way of bringing millions of Zomato users, our thousands of restaurant partners, and our team together with our shared love of food, to help tackle challenges that many of our friends and loved ones face in their daily lives.

The first edition of Turn the Tables is focused on a cause much of the world is working towards – helping cancer patients; more specifically, raising awareness about the disease and providing aid for cancer research. With 454.8 new cases of cancer and 171.2 deaths per 100,000 men and women each year, it’s evident that fighting to find a cure for this illness is an uphill battle.

We understand the sheer magnitude of the problem, but we want to do our bit, and felt we had to start somewhere. So we reached out to restaurants across Delhi, Mumbai, and Bangalore, and – unsurprisingly – received an overwhelming response from a large number of them. And this is where our users come in. From the 7th to the 16th of April, these partner restaurants will be offering specially designed set menus. For every guest who dines in support of the cause, ₹100 will go towards our partner NGOs – Cancer Patients Aid Association (CPAA), and Karunashraya, who do excellent work providing aid and treatment to cancer patients.

Hundreds of Zomato users have already made bookings online in support of this 10-day long event, which is the first of many more to follow. At the time of writing this, we’ve already raised ₹2.86 Lakhs, and counting. It’s a small start, but a start nonetheless, and we’re very excited about the next few days. Amazing things happen when the community comes together, and we know we can expect a lot more people joining in and doing their bit to help the cause.