What's Community Dinner?
A little history for ya - come hang out with us on March 19th!
Once a month, RUMAH hosts a public Community Dinner at The Hub. These dinners provide a time for folks to come together, share some food, and hang out! Today’s post will share a little bit about the history of these dinners <3
From Cailin, a founding member of RUMAH & long-time volunteer:
I started hosting community dinners at my home in early 2023. I wanted to bring together all the people from the different organizations I was connected with, like Food Not Bombs Raleigh (FNB), Triangle Democratic Socialists of America (TDSA), Sunrise Durham, and others. These dinners also included a group of people dreaming with me about a mutual aid hub and community space in Raleigh, a dream soon to take shape as RUMAH! Through these family-style meals, I wanted to make space for us all to get to know each other more personally…to take some time out from our meetings and agendas, our heavy discussions about how to address climate change and gentrification…and just be people together. Community Dinner became a place to cross-pollinate knowledge across groups, increase our collective connections to one another, and share resources as well as a good time and a hearty meal. Every dinner became another opportunity to learn from people that I had so much respect for - people that have been in the game much longer that I had - and I saw firsthand how we all grew stronger from connecting with each other in this way.
When we (that group of dreamers I mentioned) finally opened RUMAH in late summer 2023, I was excited to have a place to host public-facing Community Dinners without having to worry about fitting way too many people in my house or sharing my address publicly. The first Community Dinner at RUMAH happened on June 22, 2023, and over 30 people came out. Since then, I’ve hosted 20 Community Dinners at RUMAH, with attendance for all dinners so far totaling over 540 people! One dinner alone had almost 50 community members show up.
Those first few months, when attendance was smaller, we would transition to playing games after dinner - I’ll always enjoy the classics like “poop smoothies” and the fishbowl game (don’t get us started on the definition of soup…if you know, you know!). It’s been amazing to see Community Dinner grow and evolve, and I’ve even been told by several folks that these dinners have become the highlight of their month!
Community Dinners are potluck style, but my hope is for these dinners to feel accessible to folks who are not able to bring contributions to the meal, so bringing food to attend is by no means required or expected (of course any contributions are always appreciated though!). Every month, I try to make enough food to feed the whole group just in case, and my meals are always gluten free and vegan to accommodate as many dietary needs as I can. Because of this, chili and curry have become my signature Community Dinner meals (again…iykyk) and in the early days I would drive a wok full of curry, sloshing around without a lid in the world, precariously buckled in on my passenger seat, all the way from my house to RUMAH (and yet…not one spill…hell yeah). Now, I have amassed all the Crock/Insta Pots I could ever need - you’d be surprised how many people are tying to get rid of one! Speaking of, I have at least one too many, so if you need one, please reach out…seriously.
Sometimes we use Community Dinner to celebrate special occasions. Last June, we celebrated RUMAH’s 1-year opening anniversary at Community Dinner, aka the RUMAHVERSARY, complete with a piñata, cake, party hats, and a banner. We also celebrated Volunteer Appreciation Week last year and set up a shout-out whiteboard to celebrate each other’s volunteer work in the community and at RUMAH!
This past October and December, we hosted an open mic and jam session after dinner, and November became a Friendsgiving celebration! The next Community Dinner is set for Wednesday, March 19 from 6:00pm – 9:00pm, and this time we’ll be having a Spring Equinox Feast!
We hope to continue providing monthly Community Dinners as a resource of rest and rejuvenation, a conduit for community, and a place to find fulfillment (and free food) for as many folks as we can. Won’t you join us?