Community suppers fight loneliness in Maine : NPR

Again in 2023, Karl Schatz and Margaret Hathaway, a husband and spouse workforce, had lately revealed 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 danger of heart problems, dementia, stroke, melancholy, nervousness, 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 stuffed with recipes and tales from all around the state of Maine and other people saved telling them that they liked the books as a lot for the recipes as for the tales, Schatz informed me.

This made Schatz and Hathaway surprise if, maybe, they is perhaps 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 nicely, even when they stay across the nook from one another. Every individual brings a dish to share and some resolve 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 friends arrived. Folks filter in, and lots of casseroles arrive — it is March in Maine, in any case — even an previous basic, 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. Properly, I turned the oven on.”

The environment within the room is convivial and light-weight. Schatz seems round and says, “You recognize, I feel that folks see this as kind of a present to the neighborhood, this chance for folks to return collectively.”

He tells me that, to be sincere, he and Hathaway did not know at first what precisely they have been offering. After which a lady at one among 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 she or he got here and sat down on the desk throughout from me. I requested her what introduced her to the supper and she or he 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 rooster, apples, cheese, and cranberries.

Marsden Shetterly/for NPR

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Marsden Shetterly/for NPR

Only a few weeks in the past, the 2025 World Happiness Report issued a warning that acknowledged: “Social connections are critically vital for human well being, happiness, and prosperity.” The answer in response to the report? Folks want to take a seat down and eat collectively. Hathaway agrees we’d like 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 scorching button points that out of the blue are. Meals is mostly one thing folks can speak about with out it changing into contentious.”

As I mill round speaking to friends, a lady named June Howard is raring to inform me what she has dropped at share tonight. (Spoiler: It is a casserole.) She says, “It is obtained cubed-up rooster. It is obtained 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 hearth on the home subsequent door to hers.

Attendees contribute to the meals in no matter approach they will, with home made dishes or choices straight from the shop.

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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 friends as everybody waits for the buffet to get beneath approach.

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 which means 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’d like, for those who’re sitting with an individual that you’ve dinner with each evening of the week, and also you resolve tonight you need to have dinner with another person, you will have my permission to take a seat with another person. We encourage you to try this, to perhaps make a brand new connection, as a result of that’s the reason we we’re right here tonight.”

And, in case anybody is frightened they have to stand up to inform a narrative he says, “So far as the story sharing goes, folks usually 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 road, you may’t have story-telling with out story listening.”

Brendan Schauffler tells the group about his father.

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Marsden Shetterly/for NPR

The room will get quiet, solely the clinking of silverware and chewing will be heard. Brendan Schauffler stands up and walks to the entrance of the room. He rubs his arms 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 young person. 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 might be caught on this place without end. I grew to become 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 totally exhausting 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.

Should you or somebody you understand is in disaster, please name, textual content or chat with the Suicide and Disaster Lifeline at 988.