Olive Garden's Pasta Tales essay contest: money and 3 days in NYC

Olive Garden, one of the pricier restaurant chains in the nation, wants students from first through 12th to essay on ending hunger.

The essays have a 50 - 250 word requirement and Olive Garden will choose a winner in each grade level. The contest is open until March 22, and winners and their families stay 2 nights and 3 days in NYC. Winners will be chosen from each grade level. But the grand prize winner captures a $2,500 savings bond and a family trip to New York City.

While in New York, the family of the winner will dine at the Olive Garden in Times Square. Olive Garden has sponsored the Pasta Tales contest 17 years now. This year's essay is concerned with fighting hunger in communities. Olive Garden will sponsor a $5,000 bond to help bring to life some of the ideas proposed by writers to end hunger in their communities. The winning entrants in each grade group win a $500 savings bond and a family dinner at their local Olive Garden.

If the contest isn't enough, or simply too much for now, or your kids are too old or too young to enter, there are other Olive Garden deals out there. Until March 21, 2013, Olive Garden has a coupon for kids to eat free with the purchase of one adult menu. Click here for that coupon.

Olive Garden's lunch menu begins at $6.95 and they come with homemade soup and garden fresh salad. Olive Garden also has a two for $25 menu, a favorite with shoppers on a budget.

Olive Garden recently changed its menu and its logo recently to give the Tuscan inspired restuarant a more modern appeal. The changes actually started in October when Olive Garden introduced a "lighter Italian fare" menu with low calorie dishes.

Olive Garden has also gone executive changes and announced a new CEO in January. New CEO, Dave George unveiled new uniforms, all black, for Olive Garden's waitstaff. The old Olive Garden sign and logo on its restuarants will also disappear. And archittecturally, the Huffington Post reports that Olive Garden plans to abandon the Tuscan Farmhouse template.

The new Olive Garden promises to reflect a more contemporary Italy.

Not everyone who dines at the Olive Garden can relate to the restuarants relevance with new and old Italy, Tuscan farmhouses or contemporary Rome.

What's for certain is the chain has a vested interested in ending hunger in communities and has left students across the United States with a real chance to make a difference or to help agencies already in place that work to end hunger.

The essay question is straightforward: "How would you help to end hunger in your community?"

The essay is a good opportunity for students to get acquainted with food pantries and Good Will organizations in their communities and learn ways that their communities volunteer to help those in need.

Check here and visit Olive Garden's official website for the official rules of the "Pasta Tales Essay Contest."

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