Each year, West Valley Community Services (WVCS), a Cupertino-based nonprofit that’s been going strong for 52 years, holds a unique fundraiser to help feed the hungry and house the homeless in our community. The 15th annual Chefs of Compassion will be held Friday, March 27, at 6 p.m. at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View.
At the fundraiser, local chefs present dishes they’ve created solely with ingredients from the WVCS pantry. As guests enjoy each dish, they get to hear the chef’s story behind how it came together. Local residents who benefit from WVCS’s food and rental support services also take the stage to tell their personal stories.
Two of the three participating chefs this year are from Campbell restaurants. Executive Chef Andrew “Shito” Thai at Be.Steak.A and Chef Mariano Zasso at Locanda Sorrento will join Chef Rohit Kumar Behera of Santa Clara’s Jaks in vying for best dish. A panel of judges chooses its favorite, and there’s also a people’s choice award.
Zasso has been with Locanda Sorrento for five years. He hails from Naples, Italy, and his offering at the event is inspired by a dish that his grandmother made on weekends. Zasso, whose brother Marcello is the chef at Locanda Ischia in Willow Glen, was executive chef at a five-star hotel in Sardinia before immigrating. His Ragu Napolitano helped him win San Jose’s “Best of the Sauce” last year.
Chef Thai has been at Be.Steak.A from the outset, working his way up to executive chef at the Pruneyard restaurant. He said he was surprised by all the fresh fruits and vegetables he discovered on his tour of the WVCS pantry.
“I’m Vietnamese, and every year my family—about 25 to 30 people—holds a holiday bakeoff,” he says. “We compete for a trophy named for my late Uncle, who was a chef, and for prize money. I won last year for the dessert I’m making for the Chefs of Compassion event, and honestly, the best part was having my very hard-to-please grandmother tell me how much she liked it.”
A version of this dessert is now featured at the restaurant.
After stints in luxury hotels India and Dubai, Chef Rohit Kumar Behera is redefining modern Indian cuisine at JAKS Santa Clara. He tells us he was inspired by all the fruits and vegetables he saw in the pantry, and decided to create an appetizer with a riff on a popular Indian dish. This very colorful creation involves broccolini, yogurt, saffron and cardamom.
Kohinoor Chakravarty, WVCS’s chief development and communications officer, says the diversity of cuisines and backgrounds is intentional. “Our area is so vibrant with diverse cultures, and we try to bring different ethnicities and foods each year. This year, we have Vietnamese, Italian and Indian chefs, and we know attendees will love learning more about each one’s back story.”
The event is a reflection of the services provided by West Valley Community Services, whose mission is to bring the foods of each culture directly to the community, offering them the staples they need to feed themselves and their children. In addition to Cupertino, WVCS serves clients in Los Gatos, Saratoga, Monte Sereno and West San Jose. WVCS delivers food directly to schools in its service area, including West Valley College in Saratoga, through the Park-It Market mobile food pantry.
“Over the last four years we have seen an 80% increase in need for all services, and hunger grows every year,” says Chakravarty. “We had over 30,000 visits to our food services operations in 2024-25. There are more people living in their cars, and their kids are often going to school hungry. Others face a choice of paying rent or buying food: They’d rather have a place to live to keep their dignity. That’s the kind of choices they make. We believe no one should go to bed hungry.”
Increases in service necessitate increases to the nonprofit’s budget, making Chefs of Compassion all the more important as a fundraiser.
“We are serving more people in all areas of needs, and that means we need more funds,” says Chakravarty. “We must fundraise to keep doors open to buy more trucks and food. This event is critical in securing funds as well as volunteer support.”
Chefs of Compassion also serves as a showcase to recruit volunteers of all ages who can assist in lending a hand to feed their hungry neighbors. Seeds of Compassion enables kids 5 years and up to help sort food for the market trucks and also assist with different drives at local schools. Roots of Compassion targets high school students who want to help sort and stack food during the summer months.
“We have thousands of pounds of food that need to be sorted daily,” says Chakravarty. “We encourage volunteerism and want to get younger children involved, because compassion is instilled at an early age.”
For tickets and more information about Chefs of Compassion, visit chefsofcompassion.org.