This time the group meal is taking place over lunch, from 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m on July 20 at Courthouse Square, 23 N. Main St. in downtown Dayton.
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Unlike the other meals the group has hosted, participants are encouraged to pack or purchase lunches for the event downtown.
Credit: Submitted
Credit: Submitted
Bryan Stewart, the Longest Table's founder, said the idea for the downtown lunch is to engage downtown workers in community building.
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“We want them to meet people from Dayton and hear their stories and hear about some of the exciting things they have not been exposed to like Levitt Pavilion and the Arcade,” Stewart said. “What better way to spice up your afternoon or lunch, but to go out for a 100-person table?”
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The July meal is in partnership with The Downtown Dayton Partnership and Montgomery County’s The Square is Where daily summer lunch series that features free live entertainment.
Stewart said food can be purchased from nearby restaurants or food trucks operating in the square.
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The Longest Table is getting longer.
The program was recently mentioned in the Baltimore Sun as part of an article about a similar project launching in that city.
Longest Table Dayon was patterned after a similar project in Tallahassee, Florida that holds annual dinners.
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Stewart said a New York group came to Dayton to observe the Longest Table’s April session in the Twin Towers neighborhood and plans to launch a project in that city. Longest Table Dayton held its first event in October, where more than 500 relative “strangers” broke bread with one another on the Third Street Bridge (The Peace Bridge) during the giant dinner party.
“I think good ideas are contagious,” Stewart said. “I also think we live in a very divided society. A lot of people who don’t want to be in such a polarized society are really receptive to the idea of sitting down and talking to someone that is not over a keyboard.”
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