On Feb. 12, students, faculty and other Bellingham residents will gather for food and community as part of the first Longest Table at Western Washington University.
Gina Ebbeling, the resource navigator at Western’s Basic Needs Hub, first had the idea in 2023.
“I'm a gatherer and connector at heart, and in winter I started having this idea of bringing people together over a meal,” Ebbeling said.
The event is part of a nationwide movement to bring communities together that started in Chelsea, New York in 2022.
Western’s Longest Table will have 54 tables arranged in several sections instead of one line because it’s indoors. The event will be catered to take the responsibility of bringing food off table captains and attendees, Ebbeling said.
Ebbeling began researching community dinner events after a colleague brought up the University of Mississippi hosting a Longest Table on campus.
She contacted a nonprofit called NYCNext, the organization behind the original Longest Table. They provided a branding toolkit and advice for planning a spin-off event at Western.
Maryam Banikarim, the co-founder of NYCNext, organized the first Longest Table after noticing her neighborhood felt disconnected following the COVID-19 pandemic.
She shared a photo on the Nextdoor app of people in Egypt having a meal on the street to celebrate Ramadan and asked if anyone would want to attend a similar event.
Over 200 people reacted to the image, so Banikarim and her team got to work acquiring permits to block off a street. The event had more than 500 attendees in the first year, 700 the second year and more than 1,000 attendees in 2024.
“It's an amazing and joyous two hours of just sitting with people, some of whom you know and many you don't know,” Banikarim said.
The Longest Table has now been replicated around the world, from Cloverdale, California to Paris, France.
Students at Barnard College conducted an unpublished survey at the 2023 Longest Table and found that people felt less lonely and more connected with their community afterward.
60% of the attendees were from the general vicinity of Banikarim’s neighborhood block, but 40% came from other areas, such as the Upper East Side, according to the survey. This year, there was a woman who came from Canada, Banikarim said.
Kelly Sisney, the lead director of operations at Resurrection, A United Methodist Church in Missouri, organized a Longest Table in September 2024 and observed a similar sense of community.
“It was really kind of a priceless experience,” Sisney said. “I saw the coolest stuff that day, the cameraman from the news station ended up sitting down with one table who offered him food, the tables were decorated to the nines, and little kids everywhere.”
Dara Wishingrad, a planner and attendee of the first Longest Table in Chelsea, manages the kid's area at the event. People donate toys and blankets to create the space, Wishingrad said.
“Every year it’s just this wonderful big mess of kids and drawings on the sidewalk,” Wishingrad said. “Everyone has something to bring to the table.”
She hopes it continues for years to come.
Each Longest Table feels as if it belongs to the group who coordinated it, Banikarim said.
“That's sort of the magic of it,” Banikarim said. “We give you the tool kit, but you can then make it your own.”
Table captains will be an essential part of Western’s Longest Table, Ebbeling said. Table captains are staff and student volunteers who will invite friends to the dinner, foster conversation during the event and make everyone feel welcome at each table.
“This is an event that brings people out of their homes, out of their comfort zone a little bit, to sit around a table and eat,” Ebbeling said. “It’s something we do every day and so it's such a great opportunity to be face to face, to connect and have conversation.”
Ebbeling hopes to make the event a yearly tradition at Western.
“We're very excited to see this event take off,” she said. “I think it's pretty great to be at the very first one and make some great memories there.”
Details of the event can be found on the Basic Needs Hub page.
Natalie Jones (she/they) is a campus life reporter for The Front this quarter. She is a third-year visual journalism major. In their free time, they make collage art & jewelry, take too many photos and direct the treble A Cappella club on campus. You can reach her at nataliejones.thefront@gmail.com.
