Good Cheer fundraising dinner unites Whidbey chefs for good cause
Published 1:30 am Friday, September 18, 2026
The Good Cheer Farm to Table Fundraising Dinner will be returning for the first time in years, bringing together chefs across the island in an effort to ensure no one on Whidbey goes hungry.
The event will take place Sept. 22 at Orchard Kitchen in Langley. The multi-course dinner will feature dishes prepared by six of Whidbey’s most acclaimed chefs, including Vincent Nattress of Orchard Kitchen, Tyler Hansen and Sedrick Livingston of Goldie’s, Ben Jones of the Oystercatcher, Sieb Jurriaans of Prima Bistro and Johnny Spero of Passage.
Nattress, who is also the owner of Orchard Kitchen, said he was involved in coordinating the original fundraising dinner in 2016 when he was still a member of the Good Cheer Board of Directors. He proposed hosting the event at his restaurant.
Orchard Kitchen hosted other Good Cheer fundraising dinners for several years after that, but the dinners stopped during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Good Cheer Executive Director Jonathan Kline explained that he wanted to look into bringing back events the organization stopped holding during the pandemic, with the fundraising dinner emerging as one such event.
Kline said the fundraising dinner comes at a particularly pressing time for Good Cheer, as the organization has seen a “significant uptick” in the number of households using its services. According to Kline, there was a 60% month-over-month increase in new households utilizing Good Cheer’s services compared to last fall.
He pointed to economic pressures such as rising gas and food prices as reasons more people have started to rely on the food pantry.
“We’re just seeing more and more folks that are needing a little extra help,” Kline said.
An event like the fundraising dinner will help keep shelves stocked for the broad spectrum of community members who use Good Cheer’s food pantry, he said.
Nattress said he was very supportive of bringing back the dinner when approached by Good Cheer, noting that he and the other featured chefs firmly believe in the organization’s cause.
“We would love to serve the art that we produce,” he said. “The people who pay a great deal of money enjoy it. We also want a community where nobody’s hungry.”
According to Nattress, the fine-dining scene on Whidbey is still “nascent.” However, he emphasized that the more successful restaurants there are on the island, the better it will be for the community as a whole.
“One thing that a fully developed food system does is contribute to charitable endeavors in their community,” he said, “and I felt like that was missing for a while, a chance for all of us to get together and do that.”
Kline said he views the dinner as a way for the community to connect and help those who have fallen on hard times.
“I think it’s a really special part of being here on South Whidbey,” he said. “Just everyone coming together and taking care of each other and being able to show off their talents a little bit while doing it.”
All $250 tickets for the dinner have sold out.
