Using Food and Stories to Bring People Together

Lots of people are concerned about polarization and the lack of social connection in the country right now. Husband and wife team Karl Schatz and Margaret Hathaway decided to do something about it. Their answer: deploy the power of food and storytelling to build community.

“Food is a universal leveler,” Schatz says. “Regardless of your political beliefs, your social beliefs, economic background, we all eat.”

Community Plate, the nonprofit Schatz and Hathaway founded, teams up with local groups across Maine to organize story sharing potluck suppers. Participants are encouraged to bring a dish that has a story behind it — along with the recipe — and to sit with people they don’t know.

Each meal has a theme. Story prompts, which are announced ahead of time and printed on cards at the meal, guide conversation at the tables. At the “Fish Tales” event in Bowdoinham, Me., for example, participants were encouraged to share stories about a recipe that “got away” from them or a fish tale of any sort. Then, during dessert, local storytellers share yarns they’ve prepared ahead of time.

Reading things like the surgeon general’s advisory on the loneliness epidemic can make the lack of social cohesion feel academic, Schatz says. But the community potlucks are a tangible way to bring people together. One woman at a dinner offered to teach another how to make a flaky pie crust; other participants have made plans to go fishing together. Three women who met for the first time at the Waterville supper last fall went together to the town’s mayoral debate the following week and have contacted the organization to help organize another dinner in their town.

Ultimately, Community Plate wants to take what it’s learned and create a kit to help other nonprofits and individuals organize potluck and storytelling events where they live.

“The goal is for the organization to be a catalyst for these communities to really reinvigorate this type of community engagement and interpersonal engagement,” Schatz says. “We need other people to be engaged in this work.”

Karl Schatz for Community Plate