Overview

Overview:

We are a community of mostly 20- and 30- somethings who’ve each experienced significant loss. We get together over potluck dinners to talk about the ways in which it continues to affect our lives and how to thrive in #LifeAfterLoss. Through beautiful, unstructured dinner parties hosted by friends for friends, they invite those who’ve experienced significant loss – whether a parent, partner, sibling, or friend – to dive into long-tabooed territory, sharing a defining part of ourselves that rarely sees the light of day. Together, they’re pioneering tools and community through which young people who’ve experienced significant loss can use their shared experience as a springboard toward living better, bolder, and more connected lives.

Combatting the isolation that so often comes with loss can not be done solely behind closed doors. That’s why they’re also working to tackle widespread cultural taboos, and to create spaces and tools through which those who have yet to undergo the experience can learn to be better friends or partners to those who have. Their end goal? They foresee a day in which Dinner Parties are as pervasive as AA meetings, and as culturally acceptable and readily accessible as yoga and meditation classes: a day in which young people who have experienced loss are recognized not as objects of pity, but as better listeners and better leaders, characterized by profound empathy, resilience, and agency.

Details:

  • Length: Evening potlucks
  • Apply: Simply find a potluck happening near you – or host one yourself!

Spud’s Thoughts:

The Dinner Party is one of those beautifully simple ideas. A few friends who had personally experienced loss of some sort were trying to navigate forward for themselves – and found that sharing a meal together was a powerful starting point. Motivated by the impact it had on their lives, they designed to build an identity and movement behind the concept so that others could be invited to the table. Some ideas naturally gain momentum on their own and this seems to be one of those. If you’ve experienced loss of some sort, seek a community who you can be authentic and process with – and perhaps the Dinner Party will be that group!