On a breezy Friday evening on Northwestern’s Lakefill, several tables were stretched end-to-end as dozens of strangers and friends gathered for a shared potluck dinner.
The gathering was part of a nationwide event series known as “The Longest Table,” hosted on campus by If You’re Reading This, a student organization dedicated to destigmatizing mental health through sharing student-written stories of their own struggles.
The group was founded at NU in 2023 by Finola Summerville (Weinberg ’25) and Seela Hinrichs (Weinberg ’25). After the group officially became a registered student organization on campus, Weinberg senior and If You’re Reading This President Colleen Charchut began brainstorming new ways to grow its presence on campus.
After seeing “The Longest Table” events take place in New York City, Charchut said she began thinking about hosting something similar at NU.
“We haven’t tried to do an event like this before,” she said. “We wanted to use our new registered student organization status to try to throw a bigger event than we had ever done before.”
Charchut said the event was part of the larger mission of the If You’re Reading This organization to host “Unwind Your Mind” events, encouraging chapters across the country to host outdoor programs to get students to take a break from their schoolwork and connect with others.
For seniors like Charchut, the event served a bonus purpose: to savor the last few weeks of being on a college campus.
“Reflecting back to when I was a senior in high school, what I noticed is that people got to the end of their four years and realized they were running out of time, and so they had to make the most of every event and every opportunity to meet their classmates,” she said. “I just wanted to host an event where students can do that.”
Charchut noted that “The Longest Table” event series gained popularity just after the COVID-19 pandemic, when residents of big cities were eager to reconnect with their neighbors following months of quarantine.
To this day, the concept has managed to maintain its momentum years after its inception.
“Even years after coronavirus has subsided, there are still fun ways like this that will get people out of the house and let you meet other students or neighbors or Evanston residents that you wouldn’t have met before,” Charchut said.
McCormick senior Bobby Cloninger, who attended the potluck, said that events like “The Longest Table” help address the growing “loneliness epidemic” that many young people, particularly men, are experiencing.
Cloninger, who will be moving to Dallas after graduating, said he would “absolutely” attend another “The Longest Table” event to meet new people.
“It seems like the people that are drawn to (“The Longest Table” events) are social and outgoing and kind … being in a new city, it’s going to be the perfect opportunity to make friends and find like-minded people,” Cloninger said.
While at the potluck, Weinberg junior and If You’re Reading This club member Christina Feng said she had a nice conversation with two new people at the picnic table.
She said she later found out she shared mutual friends with them.
“You can look end-to-end and see everyone gather, and it’s not separated into different directions,” Feng said. “It’s all united, and I think that is a big part of what makes this special.”
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