Fifteen years after launching the Downtown Welcome Table, Haywood Street Congregation is reintroducing its free weekly community lunch program with a new campaign, We Saved You a Seat.
“This campaign aims to counteract the growing issue of social isolation, especially among the marginalized, by fostering community through shared meals,” says Melanee Rizk, Haywood Street Congregation’s lead storyteller. “It underscores the belief that communal dining — where individuals are seated together, sharing a thoughtfully prepared meal — can bridge divides and affirms each person’s dignity and worth.”
Since 2010, the Welcome Table has invited the housed and unhoused, food-secure and food-insecure, to a hot lunch at the nonprofit’s downtown campus every Wednesday, and many attendees are regulars. With We Saved You a Seat, the Welcome Table hopes to use media partnerships and social media messages to increase awareness about the program.
Guests are greeted by a volunteer, referred to at the Welcome Table as a “companion” and led to a table set with East Fork Pottery plates, silverware, cloth napkins and fresh flowers. Each table is served by another companion, who brings salad, baskets of bread, bowls of sides, the entrée and dessert to be passed around family-style.
“We use the term ‘companion’ rather than volunteer because a companion means to be someone who is in relationship with another,” explains Laura Brown, Haywood Street Congregation’s companion coordinator. “Our biggest hope and goal is to do everything within the context of relationship. In order to serve the meal with dignity and worth, we need a lot of different hands.”
The meal takes place in two dining rooms and an outdoor patio, in 30-minutes slots, every 30 minutes. Altogether, Brown says, Welcome Table seats about 380 people over the course of 2 1/2 hours. Reservations for a particular time slot are made on-site the day of the meal.
Every Tuesday, banquet steward Jinnia Siironen and her helpers prepare a meal with 650-700 servings. The quantities ensure that people can freely request more helpings of their choice. “It is really important to us to live into abundance so people are welcome to seconds and thirds, as much as they would like,” says Brown. Asheville Poverty Initative’s 12 Baskets Café program picks up leftovers every Wednesday to redistribute to the community.
Welcome Table sources products through partnerships with food delivery suppliers, primarily funded through donations. Since the start of the program, local chefs and restaurants have also pitched in to provide meals on a regular, recurring basis, among them the James Beard Award-winning Cúrate, 12 Bones, Strada Italiano, Chestnut, Corner Kitchen, Vinnie’s and Gypsy Queen Cuisine.
Known as Chefs @ Downtown Welcome Table, the partnership is based on the shared belief that one of the best ways to love people is through food. “That relationship is one of my favorite things,” Brown says. “Asheville is such a foodie city, and through restaurants’ generosity we make accessible the things we all love about Asheville to everyone.”
James Beard Award-winning chefs aside, the Welcome Table’s hands-down, enduring, favorite meal comes from the recipe box of companion Mary Littlejohn. “No one wants to miss the week with Miss Mary’s Meatloaf,” Brown says with a laugh. “She was so crucial in helping Downtown Welcome Table get started and is still in the kitchen regularly. Her meatloaf is legendary, and Miss Mary is a celebrity.”
Downtown Welcome Table is at Haywood Street Congregation, 297 Haywood St. Lunch is served 10 a.m.-12:30 p.m. every Wednesday. For information on dining or becoming a companion, visit avl.mx/ayz.
