Neighborhood Plate seeks to carry folks collectively over shared potluck suppers of traditional casseroles.
Marsden Shetterly/for NPR
cover caption
toggle caption
Marsden Shetterly/for NPR
Again in 2023, Karl Schatz and Margaret Hathaway, a husband and spouse workforce, had just lately printed two volumes of the Maine Neighborhood Cookbook after they heard that the U.S. surgeon basic, Vivek Murthy, had declared an epidemic of loneliness. Murthy wrote, “It’s related to a better threat of heart problems, dementia, stroke, melancholy, anxiousness, and untimely loss of life.” Loneliness is as dangerous as smoking 15 cigarettes a day or by no means exercising, he elaborated. Hathaway and Schatz’s books have been filled with recipes and tales from all around the state of Maine and folks saved telling them that they beloved the books as a lot for the recipes as for the tales, Schatz informed me.
This made Schatz and Hathaway marvel if, maybe, they could be uniquely positioned to supply an antidote to loneliness. Collectively they set about to discovered Neighborhood Plate. The objective of the group is to create potluck suppers in cities all around the state of Maine the place folks come collectively who won’t know one another that effectively, even when they reside across the nook from one another. Every particular person brings a dish to share and some determine they’ll inform tales.
So it was, on a current drizzly March day, that Hathaway and Schatz, together with their daughter, Charlotte, have been checking folks in for a Sunday story sharing supper in Norway, Maine.
All three greeted folks on the door, talking over one another as the primary company arrived. Individuals filter in, and plenty of casseroles arrive — it is March in Maine, in spite of everything — even an previous traditional, inexperienced bean. Reed Mclean tells me that it is “straight from the can.” I ask, “Did you assist make it?” And he solutions, “I didn’t. Effectively, I turned the oven on.”
The ambiance within the room is convivial and lightweight. Schatz appears round and says, “You already know, I believe that individuals see this as type of a present to the group, this chance for folks to return collectively.”
He tells me that, to be trustworthy, he and Hathaway did not know at first what precisely they have been offering. After which a lady at one in every of their very first suppers really outlined it for them: “She had simply moved to Maine, she was a grandmother, she had moved right here to be nearer to her grandkids, and he or she got here and sat down on the desk throughout from me. I requested her what introduced her to the supper and he or she mentioned, ‘I got here as a result of I am lonely.’ It was the primary time I would ever heard somebody say that out loud.”
June Howard’s casserole contribution featured cubed hen, apples, cheese, and cranberries.
Marsden Shetterly/for NPR
cover caption
toggle caption
Marsden Shetterly/for NPR
Just some weeks in the past, the 2025 World Happiness Report issued a warning that said: “Social connections are critically essential for human well being, happiness, and prosperity.” The answer in response to the report? Individuals want to sit down down and eat collectively. Hathaway agrees we want this now greater than ever. “And simply as our tradition turns into extra divisive, there are such a lot of points you by no means thought have been going to be sizzling button points that all of the sudden are. Meals is mostly one thing folks can speak about with out it turning into contentious.”
As I mill round speaking to company, a lady named June Howard is keen to inform me what she has delivered to share tonight. (Spoiler: It is a casserole.) She says, “It is acquired cubed-up hen. It is acquired carrots, celery, onions, cheese, apples, cranberries …”
Seated subsequent to her, Ruby Bryant, tells me she is glad to be right here tonight as a result of she wanted to get out. Two weeks in the past there was a horrible fireplace on the home subsequent door to hers.
Attendees contribute to the meals in no matter manner they’ll, with do-it-yourself dishes or choices straight from the shop.
Marsden Shetterly/for NPR
cover caption
toggle caption
Marsden Shetterly/for NPR
“We heard pounding on the door so we went downstairs in our pajamas and it was the policemen, by then they knocked the door down and so they mentioned, get your coats, and get out, your own home is melting.”
Although Bryant says she is gluten free and has introduced her personal dinner, she chats amiably with different company as everybody waits for the buffet to get beneath manner.
Quickly, Schatz takes the mic and encourages folks to enter the buffet line, desk by desk. “We’re gonna begin with this desk over right here, ‘trigger you guys have been right here first so I do know meaning you are hungry.”
When everyone seems to be lastly seated and consuming, Schatz stands up once more, and takes the microphone. His mission is to get folks connecting and speaking. He suggests, “If you would like, if you happen to’re sitting with an individual that you’ve got dinner with each evening of the week, and also you determine tonight you wish to have dinner with another person, you’ve gotten my permission to sit down with another person. We encourage you to try this, to possibly make a brand new connection, as a result of that’s the reason we we’re right here tonight.”
And, in case anybody is apprehensive they have to rise up to inform a narrative he says, “So far as the story sharing goes, folks typically ask, ‘Do I’ve to share a narrative?’ And the reply is ‘no.’ You do not have to share a narrative. We additionally want listeners. Storytelling is a two-way avenue, you’ll be able to’t have story-telling with out story listening.”
Brendan Schauffler tells the group about his father.
Marsden Shetterly/for NPR
cover caption
toggle caption
Marsden Shetterly/for NPR
The room will get quiet, solely the clinking of silverware and chewing may be heard. Brendan Schauffler stands up and walks to the entrance of the room. He rubs his palms collectively after which takes the mic. He begins to inform a narrative about his father’s loneliness, which led to his father’s eventual suicide when Schauffler was a youngster. Wanting across the room, forks are down, faces nonetheless, everybody’s listening.
Brendan confesses, “I felt like my face forgot the form of a smile and that I’d be caught on this place ceaselessly. I turned decided to by no means once more lose the chance to inform somebody I cared about how a lot they imply to me.
After two extra storytellers, the night begins to wind down and individuals are pulling on coats and gathering their ladles and crock pots. Then, a person who requested that NPR not identify him to guard his household from additional ache, faucets Schauffler on the shoulder.
“I needed to thanks on your story. I, too, misplaced somebody very near me. I misplaced my 13-year-old son to suicide. And it’s extremely arduous for me, however I actually admire your braveness.”
The 2 males maintain one another. Schauffler says into the person’s ear, “I’m so sorry on your loss.” They begin to half, after which they lean in once more, and maintain on as soon as extra.
Moments of connection like this are unplanned and profound. The recipe is so easy: A Sunday evening, a potluck, some neighbors, and some tales. Neighborhood Plate is providing Maine an antidote to loneliness and disconnection, one supper at a time.
For those who or somebody you understand is in disaster, please name, textual content or chat with the Suicide and Disaster Lifeline at 988.
