Andovertakeout.com, a popular Internet site that provides students with menus for local restaurants, sponsored a fundraiser last week to raise money for the Phillips Academy Disaster Relief Initiative. Over two hundred students helped the club raise $1014 during last Wednesday’s Takeout Night. Six representatives from downtown restaurants frequented by PA students, including Hometown Seafood, King’s Subs, Golden Chopsticks, Mootone, Teatone, and Thai Sweet Basil, brought samples from their menus to the Underwood Room. Students were able to choose how much food and from which restaurants they wanted to eat. Admission cost four dollars for a ticket in advance and five dollars at the door. Andovertakeout.com’s creators, John Gwin ’07 and Henry Frankieviech ’07, organized the fundraiser. “John and I thought that people would really enjoy sampling food from downtown Andover. We thought that it might also introduce people to new restaurants. When Friar Francisco approached John about having AndoverTakeout.com participate in PA’s Disaster Relief initiative, we thought Takeout Night might be the perfect way to help,” said Frankevich. Gwin said, “Our goal for the event was obviously to raise as much money as we could. Susie Flug, our community service liaison, said that she would consider the event a big success if we raised $500. We were ecstatic to raise over $1000.” Although thrilled that the event was so popular, Gwin and Frankievich were surprised at the popularity of the event and underestimated the amount of food they needed. “When we spoke to the restaurants about the amount of food we needed, we had no idea how many people would show up,” said Gwin. Despite the lack of food, the majority of those present received something for dinner, and of those who did not, only five people requested a refund. “Most people were just happy to donate,” said Frankievich. Gwin and Frankievich started Andovertakeout.com in October 2004 as a quick-access resource for hungry students. Currently with the menus from sixteen Andover restaurants, along with phone numbers, reviews, and a list of who will and will not deliver, the website has flourished. It receives about 75 hits on average per weeknight and up to 200 on the weekends. In the past year, the site has been visited 45,000 times, attesting to PA’s takeout addiction. Frankievich said that he and Gwin started the site, “as a way to consolidate restaurant menus online. John and I are chronic orderers, so at the time, we each had piles of takeout menus in our dorm rooms. We figured that a website would be an easy way to manage the mess, and that it would a great guide for the rest of the school.”
