Dining with Purpose
Dining with Purpose brought people across difference to the same table to talk about food insecurity, build relationships, and discover what they could do together.
“The dinners certainly helped to build a sense of community and shared purpose.”
Bao-Long
We created community.
Working with the Houston Food Bank, I developed Dining with Purpose to explore how to build connection among its stakeholder groups: neighbors, partners, donors, and volunteers.The program design focused on connection, the state of community, storytelling, othering and belonging, power dynamics, and personal action plans across six shared meals.The pilots were successful, so we created facilitator and participant playbooks that allowed the program to be shared with other organizations. The program also helped shape HFB’s Volunteer Experience.
Conversation opens the question.
Research grounds it.
Collaboration builds the pilot.
Pilot. Debrief. Iterate.
The Dining with Purpose pilots helped shape HFB’s Texans at Every Table.
Here's what changed!
More in Common featured Dining with Purpose in its 2025 study, The Connection Opportunity, and independently evaluated the fall 2024 program.
Read the study ↗- 87%
- felt a sense of belonging
- 90%
- learned something new
- 86%
- found common ground across differences
- 81%
- felt inspired to take community action