Community Shares of Illinois and three Urbana restaurants hosted the second annual “Share a Meal” Tuesday to raise money for local charities. A portion of every diner’s bill from Kennedy’s, 2560 S. Stone Creek Blvd., Milo’s, 300 S. Broadway Ave., and Silvercreek, 402 N. Race St., went to Community Shares of Illinois.

Community Shares USA is an organization that provides individuals across the country the means to support local charities, women’s groups and social justice organizations, through payroll deductions and direct gifts. The local Community Shares will distribute the money from the “Share a Meal” event to participating local charities.

“They (the restaurants) donate 30 percent of their revenue from a particular evening,” said Mike Doyle, executive director of Community Shares of Illinois.

Loralea Liss, co-chair of the fundraising committee for the event, said the purpose is to support local charities that address issues such as homelessness, domestic violence, civil liberties, preservation of natural resources, diversity and tolerance.

She said the event is designed to be a fun evening out for the participants.

“They just pick a restaurant to have dinner in, and they’re supporting their charity at the same time,” Liss said.

She said the diners could designate a particular charity they wanted to support and an additional 10 percent of that diner’s bill would go to that charity. Restaurant owners estimate the event raised more than $3,000.

Doyle said he has been involved with the event since its beginning a year and a half ago. He said the event was modeled after the “Dining Out for Life” event sponsored by ActionAIDS.

To prepare for the event, participating charities were encouraged to recruit people to dine in the restaurants to help raise money.

The Champaign County Health Care Consumers was one of those participating charities.

Executive Director Claudia Lennhoff said that prior to the event, staff members sent out an e-mail announcement, sent postcard announcements, posted information on their Web site and distributed flyers to publicize the event.

Lennhoff said staff and volunteers of Champaign County Health Care Consumers also had a reservation for 12 people at Silvercreek for the event.

Liss said Silvercreek was the only participating restaurant in Champaign-Urbana last year.

Silvercreek owner Allen Strong said last year’s event had a good turnout and raised a lot of money. Strong said he has not done the calculations yet, but thinks Silvercreek raised more than $1,000 Tuesday.

“We hope that our involvement will help out the organization. We’re happy to be a part of it,” Strong said.

Liss said that after last year’s success, the fund-raising committee added two more restaurants, Kennedy’s and Milo’s.

“We feel that we want to help the community,” said Jane Walsh, co-owner of Kennedy’s. Walsh said Kennedy’s raised $1,256.56 Tuesday. She said there was a good turnout, and people who did not know about the event prior to coming to Kennedy’s were happy about their contribution.

“It’s like their faces lit up,” she said. “It’s just nice to see the community pulling together to help.”

Jane Anderson, an owners of Milo’s, said it was nice to be able to reach out to the community and talk to customers who liked the idea of “Share a Meal.” Anderson said Milo’s raised more than $1,000.

“I think it’s a really good idea and we will most certainly do it in the future,” Anderson said.

Liss said the goal for the future is to keep growing.

Doyle said seven statewide restaurants participated in last year’s event in Chicago, Champaign-Urbana and Springfield.

This year, there were 18 participating restaurants. Doyle said that besides the three in Champaign-Urbana, there was one in Bloomington-Normal, 11 in Chicago, two in Southern Illinois and one in Springfield.

“We want to be able to expand but not grow too fast,” Doyle said.

Liss said if too many restaurants were added too quickly, there would not be enough participants to fill them.

Lennhoff said the Champaign County Health Care Consumers plan to use the money they raised with the event this year to help support their consumer health hotline. She said people can call to get assistance with any kind of question about health care. Lennhoff said that they receive more than 200 calls a month, and the extra funds will help them better assist their customers.

“It’s going to a really good cause,” she said.