Once again, Dining Out For Life turned out to be Sonoma County’s biggest dinner party!

This is our biggest annual money-raising event,” says Ron Karp, FFT’s executive director.

“This was the seventh year we’ve held this event and every year it’s grown bigger. We started with 32 restaurants and this year 60 participated,” he says. “We get a lot of enthusiastic support. We heard from people who ate every meal in a restaurant that day.”

It can take a while to measure the success of the event. Restaurants fill out paperwork and return it with a check, based on their sales figures. Additionally, donation envelopes from diners keep arriving in the mail for weeks afterwards.

Despite the tough economy, it’s looking like this year’s event will finish pretty close to last year’s in terms of total dollars raised. “We had to work harder for it,” Ron explains. “There were seven more restaurants, and lots of volunteers.”

The money raised by this event will buy a third of the of the food FFT will distribute this year. “So, all this effort is definitely worth it,” he says, pointing out that lots of new donors and volunteers first get to know the food bank though Dining Out For Life.

Plans are already in the works for next year’s event. “We’ve already heard from half a dozen new restaurants that want to be included,” Ron said. “Dining Out For Life is held the Thursday after Thanksgiving in Sonoma County, so you can mark your calendar for Dec. 3, 2009.”