Come Gather Around the Table

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One of my goals with LIGHTbeamers, is to bring you great stories from time to time, as I discover other women in the world who are up to some pretty amazing things.

This weekend, I learned about Sarah Harmeyer of Dallas Texas. Sarah is what she likes to call “a people gatherer.”

She says her favorite thing in the world is to gather around a table and celebrate with others. So, Sarah asked her Dad to build her a farm table that would seat 20 people, and because there wasn’t room for this inside her house, she set the table up outside in her backyard.

She decided to invite her neighbors over for a potluck dinner, to fill her table and create an opportunity to get to know the people living all around her. 

She created a post on the community social media app, NextDoor, and invited anyone in the neighborhood who wanted to come. She was hoping for 20 people; over 90 people showed up. 

What she learned that evening is that people are hungry for connection; people are thirsty to know their neighbors.  

This was in 2012… and in that year, she set a goal to host 500 people at that table for dinner…. one dinner party after another, she was determined to get to know her neighbors and bring people together.

She not only met that goal, but she did it again the next year.

To date, Sarah has hosted more than 25-hundred people at her table, and it’s spawned a business that she and her Dad run together…. making farm tables for others and teaching them how to host similar gatherings.

Sarah and her dad personally deliver each table they make to their customers, and help them launch their first dinner party. Sarah stays to gather stories from the evening and shares them on her blog.

Her business is called Neighbor’s Table, and what I love about Sarah’s story is she took something so basic and familiar to her — sharing a meal with friends and sharing stories — and created a movement, a message, and a business.

Sarah says,  “Some people think I’m in the Table business, but really I’m in the People business.”

Sharing our stories is fundamental to creating connection — in business, on social media, and in your neighborhoods.

I hope you find Sarah’s story as inspiring as I do. I’m already planning my next dinner party and thinking about the people who will come, and the stories they’ll share.

How does this story inspire you?  I'd love to know... click on the Microphone in the sidebar and record a short Voicemail. I will share your memo on an upcoming episode of my daily Flash Brieifing on Amazon.