Group suppers struggle loneliness in Maine : NPR

Again in 2023, Karl Schatz and Margaret Hathaway, a husband and spouse group, had just lately revealed two volumes of the Maine Group 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 higher danger of heart problems, dementia, stroke, melancholy, nervousness, and untimely demise.” Loneliness is as dangerous as smoking 15 cigarettes a day or by no means exercising, he elaborated. Hathaway and Schatz’s books had been stuffed 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 instructed me.

This made Schatz and Hathaway surprise if, maybe, they could be uniquely positioned to supply an antidote to loneliness. Collectively they set about to discovered Group Plate. The purpose of the group is to create potluck suppers in cities all around the state of Maine the place folks come collectively who may not know one another that nicely, even when they reside across the nook from one another. Every particular person brings a dish to share and some determine they may inform tales.

So it was, on a current drizzly March day, that Hathaway and Schatz, together with their daughter, Charlotte, had 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 visitors arrived. Folks filter in, and a number of casseroles arrive — it is March in Maine, in spite of everything — even an outdated basic, inexperienced bean.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. Effectively, I turned the oven on.”

The environment within the room is convivial and light-weight. Schatz appears round and says, “, I believe that individuals see this as form 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 had been offering. After which a girl 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 stated, ‘I got here as a result of I am lonely.’ It was the primary time I might ever heard somebody say that out loud.”

Only a few weeks in the past, the 2025 World Happiness Report issued a warning that said: “Social connections are critically vital for human well being, happiness, and prosperity.” The answer in accordance with the report? Folks want to sit down 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 had been going to be scorching button points that instantly are. Meals is mostly one thing folks can speak about with out it changing into contentious.”

As I mill round speaking to visitors, a girl named June Howard is raring to inform me what she has delivered to share tonight. (Spoiler: It is a casserole.) She says, “It is received cubed-up hen. It is received 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.

“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 stated, 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 visitors as everybody waits for the buffet to get below means.

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 had 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 need, in the event you’re sitting with an individual that you’ve dinner with each night time of the week, and also you determine tonight you wish to have dinner with another person, you might have 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 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 avenue, you may’t have story-telling with out story listening.”

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 fingers 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 teen. 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 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 persons are pulling on coats and gathering their ladles and crock pots. Then, a person who requested that NPR not title him to guard his household from additional ache, faucets Schauffler on the shoulder.

“I wished to thanks to your story. I, too, misplaced somebody very near me. I misplaced my 13-year-old son to suicide. And it’s extremely laborious 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 to 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 night time, a potluck, some neighbors, and some tales. Group 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.