One local service organization is hoping to fill the plates of hungry residents while also helping to fill local restaurant seats.

Starting this month, West Valley Community Services is partnering with restaurants in Cupertino, Los Gatos, Monte Sereno, Saratoga and West San Jose for Taste of Compassion, a monthly fundraising and community outreach event benefiting the nonprofit assistance organization.

The program will feature a dining night at a different restaurant each month. Half the proceeds raised on the event night will benefit WVCS, which assists those in need in the West Valley region.

Park Place Cupertino at the Cypress Hotel, 10050 S. De Anza Blvd., will host the inaugural dinner event July 17 and 18. The restaurant will offer a special menu priced at $24. Seating begins at 5 p.m., and the menu is tentatively scheduled to feature soup or salad with an entrée of steak, fish or chicken. There will also be a vegetarian option and desert menu.

"If you dine out once a month or are part of a group who socializes regularly, consider one of our Taste of Compassion dinner nights," said Naomi Nakano-Matsumoto, WVCS executive director. "There are no appeals or speeches. It's just a nice night out for a good cause."

Organizers said they hope this creative fundraising approach will boost donations during tough economic times.

"The need in the community continues to grow. We actually liken it to one of those perfect

storms because demand is up and funding is down," said Keith Turner, director of community resources for WVCS. "We want to offer a nice dining experience, but let's be honest—we're doing a donation drive. We're having struggles like every other nonprofit out there, and this might be one way to help us."

Local restaurants are also hoping that the program will help boost the dining industry.

"We think it's a good idea because it helps the community and it helps us because it gets our name out there to a few thousand people," said Katherine Holt, Park Place general manager. "It's all about exposure as much as we can remind people that we are here."

As part of the program's lure, organizers plan to keep the locations of the dinner nights a mystery until the month of the event.

Taste of Compassion is very similar to the Chefs Who Care program, a popular fundraiser Community Service Agency has hosted for about 17 years, according to Jim Boin, CSA's development director.

WVCS met with representatives from CSA to get ideas. CSA serves Mountain View, Los Altos and Los Altos Hills.

Boin said the CSA program started slowly but continues to grow. He estimates the program brought in more than $60,000 in fiscal year 2009-2010.

"The advice for [WVCS] is to start slowly and build it up. We were maybe starting with about 100 people on board. Now we are reaching about 300 people monthly," said Boin. "It's something that's popular and that people like because it's a low-cost way of supporting an organization without really doing anything you wouldn't normally be doing anyway."

WVCS is hopeful Taste of Compassion can become a monthly ritual for residents in the city.

"Eventually, I hope it has its own momentum behind it with people wondering each month where the next restaurant is going to be," said Turner.

WVCS serves the West Valley communities of Cupertino, Los Gatos, Monte Sereno, Saratoga, West San Jose and the unincorporated mountain regions.

Reservations are recommended through www.wvcommunityservices.org or by calling 408.255.8033 ext. 152.