“When my mom died, I felt achingly alone. It was an isolation that I had never experienced before. But as soon as I started attending dinners about a month and a half later, that loneliness abated. It was kind of a Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz moment — I was stepping out of a completely colorless world and back into something that was richer and more vibrant than before. I felt like I could start reclaiming my life again. The Dinner Party is life-changing. Full stop."
— Alix, Philadelphia
Our Mission
Our mission is to connect young adult grievers to a caring and supportive community of peers, transforming our most isolating experiences into a source of long-lasting companionship, personal meaning-making, and culture change.
Our Vision
We envision a world where the death of our people and the isolation of our grief are met with authentic care and community; where we form connections with peers that make us feel deeply seen and heard in our grief, celebrated and empowered in our stories, and better equipped to show up for ourselves, others, and the world at large, as we navigate loss and life beyond.
Our Values
Peer Care: Fostering a culture of care between people (outside of their professions, existing circles, and social media feeds) is a radical act.
Tender Connection: We can find some of our deepest friendships and most genuine belonging through the vulnerability of our grief.
Personal Agency: People are their own best experts.
Legacy, Ours and Theirs: We honor the legacy of those who came before us and are building something in service to a vision that extends beyond ourselves.
Rooting in Ritual: Ritual is one of our most powerful tools in navigating times of loss.
What We Do
The Dinner Party is a platform for grieving 21-45-year-olds to find community, peer-led support, and build lasting relationships. Since 2018, The Dinner Party has connected more than 13,000 grieving peers to one another. We screen, train and support a growing network of peer Hosts, and connect them to 10-15 other grievers to form Tables. We’ve been featured on NPR’s Morning Edition, On Being with Krista Tippet, CNN, NYT, O Magazine, BuzzFeed, and dozens of other publications, and as a case study in various books, including The Upside of Stress, The New Better Off, and The Power of Meaning.
Our Impact
Since January 2022:
5,389 Dinner Partiers
have been connected by our staff to peer-led grief support through our Tables and The Buddy System, alongside over 13,000 people connected to our programs before 2022.
190 new Tables
have been started across the United States by volunteer Hosts trained and supported by our staff, alongside over 300 Tables started before 2022 that continue to gather across the country.
74 new Affinity Tables
have been created by, and for, those with shared identities (BIPOC, LGBTQIA+, Male-Identifying, and more) and shared loss experiences (Partner Loss, Suicide Loss, Sibling Loss, Both Parent Loss, Addiction or Overdose Losses, and more)
97 new Location-Based Tables
have been started by Hosts across America, from Boston to Seattle, San Francisco to Chicago, Los Angeles to New York, Washington DC to Denver, to many cities in between. These new Tables add to our list of over 135 cities across the United States that have hosted a Table.
In the Fall of 2021, we conducted a survey about the experiences of Virtual Table participants.
With the help of social scientists Dr. Laura Brady and Dr. Tobin Belzer, 222 Dinner Partiers from 82 of our 120 Virtual Tables completed the survey. Here are some preliminary findings:
97%
recommend The Dinner Party to a friend. (Indeed, 81% already had.)
95%
of respondents indicated that their table allowed them to form relationships with people with whom they would not normally connect.
92%
of respondents indicated that their table played an important role in their journey with grief.
84%
of respondents considered people at their table to be friends.
And as a result of participating in TDP, the majority of respondents indicated they:
86%
Experienced a sense of belonging
84%
Expanded their support networks
70%
Developed empathy for themselves
70%
Developed empathy for others
“Before The Dinner Party, I was always the outlier. Now I've found a place I belong, and I can't imagine my life without my tribe."
— Dani, Charlotte