Community Plate brings people together over shared food, stories, recipes

GRAY — Community Plate, a new nonprofit dedicated to facilitating connection and creating community through shared meals and stories, has announced its fall/winter lineup of public Story Sharing Potluck Suppers.

These free public events aim to bring people together in a traditional potluck supper with a twist: each attendee brings a dish, a recipe and a story to share about what they brought, according to a news release from co-founder Karl Schatz.

Over the course of the meal, led by a master of ceremony and structured around story prompts, participants are encouraged to share stories and make connections. During coffee and dessert, practiced storytellers entertain guests with tales they’ve prepared in advance. In the weeks following the meal, each attendee receives a mini cookbook filled with recipes and stories for the dishes that were brought to the event.

Schatz and Margaret Hathaway began the organization as a way to bring their work in the Maine Community Cookbooks off the page.

“When we put together the Maine Community Cookbooks, we saw firsthand the incredible power that sharing recipes and food stories can have to bring people together. We wanted to create a series of in-person events that would bring this work into communities around the state,” said Hathaway.

“When we read the Surgeon General’s 2023 report on America’s epidemic of loneliness and crisis of disconnection, we began to understand that this work could have a larger impact than we’d first imagined,” continues Schatz. “Intergenerational connection over shared food is a time-honored way of building and strengthening community ties. Sharing stories is a fundamental way human beings make connections, and Maine’s tradition of storytelling is one of the state’s cultural treasures. Our mission is to bring food and stories together in ways that make us all feel a sense of belonging.”

Community Plate has hosted four Story Sharing Suppers so far in 2023, in communities ranging from Gray to Lubec.

Upcoming events and Story Sharing Potluck Suppers include a supper from 6-9 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 18, at the Universalist Unitarian Church of Waterville at 69 Silver St., in conjunction with GrowSmart Maine’s annual summit; a supper at the Freeport Grange on Nov. 16, and a supper in Bowdoinham as part of the smelt festival on Feb. 3.

Storytelling workshops are also planned for November, January and February.

Additional suppers are being planned for Cumberland, Orono, Brunswick and Camden.

For more information, visit communityplate.me, email community@communityplate.me, or call Schatz at 207-337-6101.