32 Dinner Basket Conversations
Food brings people together
“Good food + Good Conversation means a healthy culture.”
–Selkirk College Student at a Dinner Basket Conversation
Purpose:
This activity helps build community through cooking, eating and conversation. It is becoming less common for people to sit down for meals together, but there is increasing evidence cooking and eating together is an important way people can relax, talk and bond.
Learning Objectives
Participants will:
- Enhance life skills as they help each other to cook a meal together.
- Create a warm environment by setting the table.
- Discuss a meaningful topic.
- Reflect on the experience of cooking, eating and sharing conversation together.
Description of the Dinner Basket Process when used by Selkirk College, British Columbia, Canada, as part of the provincial “Changing Cultures of Substance Use” project. Although these dinner basket conversations focussed on substance use, the topics can be suited to the needs of the participants.
What Are Dinner Basket Conversations?
Dinner Basket Conversations (DBC) are a means by which groups of people can gather together to create and eat a meal, while engaging in conversation around a chosen topic. Evidence suggests that more ease and flow is created in conversation when it is held in the context
of sharing a meal. The purpose is to gather information about the “culture of substance use” and peripherally influence cultural shifts. In the case of this study, the Dinner Basket Conversations that the stories were gleaned from focused on substance use and relationships with substances.
Facilitators volunteer to host a DBC. They invite a group of people whom they would like to engage in the conversation and purchase the groceries for a meal, usually provided by the coordinator of the DBC project. Facilitators are given a suggested list of conversation starters. They are encouraged to make notes on the themes and discussions that arise and, with permission from the participants, take pictures of the event. An evaluation of the event is handed out to the participants after it is over and these evaluations are collected and given to the coordinator.
by Leslie Comrie, M.A., Healthy Campus Coordinator, Selkirk College, B.C. Canada
This project was supported and researched by the provincial Healthy Minds|Healthy Campus organization.
This is an excerpt from a research project conducted looking at the impacts of dinner basket conversations on both participants and facilitators.
Most-Significant-Change-Stories-for-Dinner-Basket-Conversation-Facilitators.pdf
Activity Directions
- Promotion: The orgnization that is promoting dinner basket conversations will need to do some promotion about the project and probably the first few dinners could be hosted and facilitated by staff or community leaders.
- Invitation: Send an dinner invitation to a group of 6 – 10 people. The invitation should be explicit about the fact that everyone will be cooking and eating tog