Update on "Pass The Bread"

Pass the Bread

Report on inaugural event, June 26, 2009

First, to the future: It looks like October 24 will be a great day for our next Pass the Bread!We’ve received a lot of enthusiastic support for an October event, but to make it happen, Lynn and Lynne need your help! We need a few people for a small committee to plan the event, and help us find hosts for the event. Let us hear from you soon, so we can move forward with plans for the October Pass the Bread.

Please visit the website for continuing updates and to give your input: passthebreadcelebratecommunity.wordpress.com/
You can contact us at: passthebreadcelebratecommunity@gmail.com

And now, the report:
Pass the Bread, June 26
We had about 30 host homes, and around 300 people participated around Routt County. What a terrific start to this event! We received great feedback, with a lot of guests mentioning that they’d like to be hosts the next time around.

Different kinds of dinners
Hosts were creative, and came up with lots of different ways to do their dinners:
• A few dinners were co-hosted by two friends
• One of the co-hosted dinners was held as a patio party, and only singles were invited
• Another co-hosted event was a brown-bag lunch in the park
• One host home focused on age, and invited people representing every decade (in age) from the 20s through the 70s.
• The potluck structure seemed to work well for most people. One nice thing about a potluck is that everyone is participating in the meal at a more in-depth level.

Other suggestions we received:
• We learned some new ideas for how to include people you don’t know on your invitation list. One great idea that still works with the theme is to have the host invite a group of people he or she knows, but that don’t know each other.
• Another theme that we like is the block party. Knowing and understanding our neighbors can be the foundation to greater understanding across the greater community.
• Make it a day-long event so that hosts can choose between breakfast, brunch, lunch, or dinner.
• A few people noted that there was some confusion in the general community about what Pass the Bread actually is and how it works. We need to do a better job of helping people understand.

People’s response to Pass the Bread
In general, it appears that people’s response to Pass the Bread can be summed up with one or both of the following statements:
• Pass the Bread is about building community by people getting together
• Pass the Bread is about building community by enabling connections to work on community projects
And there was a nearly universal comment that what we have in Routt County is unique and special. Quite a few people who have lived in other communities commented that there’s a stronger sense of community and connectedness here than anyplace else they’ve lived.
　
Thoughts about future dinners
There were a lot of good suggestions, some that we plan to incorporate the next time around. Here are some ideas:
• There was a lot of energy and animation created by meeting and conversing with a diversity of people outside a person’s usual social network. We intend to find ways to expand the range of people involved, so that the diversity is even greater (age, race, religion, political, geographic, etc.)
• One difficulty seems to be in having younger people involved in the event. How to reach them so they know it’s happening; how to encourage their attendance; how to have the participation of young parents? One suggestion we had was to have a group such as Girl Scouts or 4h have a fundraiser by offering babysitting for this event.
• Some people felt strongly that there should be a definite topic-driven conversation around each table. Others felt that the dinners should be followed up with community service on a project. Others just enjoyed meeting new people and having a good conversation.

We have set up a page called "After Dinner" on our web site (passthebreadcelebratecommunity.wordpress.com/) that gives people the opportunity to exchange information about community projects. We’ve listed a few that people reported from their dinner conversations, so be sure to add your own interests!
• The co-chairs had intended to do this event twice a year, but there was enough feedback suggesting quarterly events that we decided to make something happen in October.
• Several people would like to see this idea go national!