BY DANIEL GAITAN | daniel@lifemattersmedia.org

In cities across the nation, a fledgling nonprofit is helping millennials cope with loss over cocktails, comfort food and conversation.

The Dinner Party group, founded by 31-year-old Lennon Flowers, encourages 20- and 30-somethings to talk about a topic seldom broached during polite supper with strangers: the death of a loved one.

In the past six years, the grassroots organization has connected hundreds of people. Many dinner guests have forged life-long friendships along the way.

“There’s a large body of people who are hungry for the kind of connection that comes uniquely from a shared meal,” Flowers told Life Matters Media. “Throughout history and across space, the act of eating together has been an extraordinary means of building relationships and real connectivity.”

Los Angeles-based Flowers said her organization was started by accident, when she and a co-worker arranged a dinner for friends who had lost a parent. In the following days, Flowers received dozens of messages from people asking advice for hosting their own parties.

“We didn’t start with any intention of starting an organization around this,” she said. “It was surprising, as we became more comfortable with our own stories.”

Now, the so-called “Dinner Partiers” can be found in most major cities– and some smaller ones like Colorado Springs, Toledo and Spokane.

These gatherings are neither meant to be morbid nor a source of professional grief support. The goal is clear: connect young adults with others who can relate.

The tone of each potluck varies, depending on the guests and host. Typically, they follow a similar pattern: a host chooses a date and location; each guest brings a dish to share – maybe something with special meaning to them (there’s an official cookbook); cocktails and catch-up; and dinner.

Invited guests are instructed to be non-judgmental, and all conversations are confidential. If someone wishes to just listen, that’s fine. If someone wants to express feelings of loneliness or guilt, that’s normal, too.

“We’re really interested in building micro-communities,” Flowers said. “When we open up about these subjects, it becomes incredibly fertile soil for developing meaningful relationships. That’s what we love.”

Groups meet on a regular basis – some quarterly, others every few weeks.

A recent Harvard Divinity School study highlighted “The Dinner Party” as an example of how millennials gather in new, non- and semi-religious ways.

According to Flowers, young adults in this population – ages 20 to 34 – are deeply interested in this subject. That is partly because many have already experienced the death of a loved one, and most hunger for meaningful discussions.

“For people who have lost someone young, it ends up being an experience that colors in very profound ways the person that you are,” she said. “The great big myth: death and dying only affects the old.”

One in seven Americans lose parents or siblings before they reach the age of 20, according to Comfort Zone Camp, a provider of childhood bereavement camps. It’s estimated that some two million Americans under the age of 30 have lost a parent or sibling in the last two years.

When Flowers was a senior in college, her mother died at age 53 from lung cancer.

“There’s a stigma about millennials – that we don’t want to ‘go there,’” Flowers said. “But we’re not just interested in cat videos and happy images on the internet.”

– Images courtesy The Dinner Party