How did we talk about race as children and how do those conversations (or lack of them) impact how we relate to our racial identities as adults?

Join Across the Table in the library at Family Focus in Evanston to talk about this important topic over a delicious dinner catered by their in-house chef!

What is the American dream, can it still exist and how does it apply to us?

We will discuss our answers to these questions and more while surrounded by architectural models, plans, books and photographs in the cozy dining room (I mean conference room!) of Stuart Cohen and Julie Hacker Architects in Evanston.

To read more about to read more about the venue and to learn about Stuart Cohen and Julie Hacker’s work, please visit, www.cohen-hacker.com.

Tickets are $30 per person and Across the Table also offers tickets at the reduced rate option of $10 per person. Please contact Lauren Grossman at hello@acrossthetable.org for more information on how to register for the $10 option. Thank you!

Be a part of the Across the Table community and join us for Evanston’s Largest Conversation! At this special community event, you will enjoy a lively cocktail hour, a four-course dinner with a facilitated conversation at your table, and a fabulous raffle!

Evanston’s Largest Conversation will have the flavor of an Across the Table Dinner, combined with the experience of a party. You will be seated at a table with an experienced facilitator where you will enjoy an engaging conversation with your table mates around the topic of your choice.The evening will kick off with a friendly cocktail hour where you will meet your table mates and enjoy drinks created especially for this event by Few Distillery. Whether this is your first Across the Table gathering or your 15th, you will receive a warm, friendly welcome and your evening will be filled with fantastic conversation!

The Private Event Space at Farmhouse

Choose two topic choices from the list below when you register and you will enjoy a conversation at your table with a focus on one of your preferred topics.

What does it mean to take a risk? 
What does it mean to be an insider or an outsider? 
What does it mean to call a place a home? 
Is it always good to trust our instincts? 
Is it possible for a person to change? 
How does our work (or lack of it) shape or not shape our identities?

This event is supported by Farmhouse Evanston and Few Distillery.

How has your gender played into the trajectory of your life, the choices you have made and the choices you have been able to make?

Join Across the Table at Y.O.U. to talk about how our gender roles have impacted where we are in our lives now and how gender has limited us or given us the freedom to have the lives we want.

This dinner will be catered by Kinship Catering. The menu will be announced soon!

Every morning, we wake up, get dressed and make a decision about how to present ourselves to the world. But do you think people should judge us based upon how we look? When is it ok to judge ourselves or judge others based upon appearance? When did you start to receive messages about the importance of your appearance? When did you begin to understand that people judge you?

Join Across the Table at Backlot Coffee for this engaging conversation with a dinner catered by Kinship Catering. Backlot Coffee is opening its doors after it closes for this special, private event so thank you to Backlot Coffee and John Kim for your hospitality and generosity!

The menu will be announced soon!

Join Across the Table for our first ever outdoor dinner on the lawn of the YWCA Evanston/North Shore! Of course the weather will be perfect (ok, my fingers are crossed!) and we will enjoy the warmth and the sunshine while we enjoy a delicious meal and have a thought-provoking, insightful, challenging and fun conversation!

Our topic of conversation will be:
What does it mean to have freedom?

This dinner is BYOB so please feel free to bring a beverage for yourself or to share if you’d like!

Join Across the Table for a delicious dinner and a dynamic, honest and meaningful dialogue about the play, A Home on the Lake which was produced in collaboration between Piven Theatre Workshop and Fleetwood-Jourdain Theatre.

This dinner is intended for anyone who has seen the play and would like the opportunity to discuss how race and social class impact where we live and what place we call a home. We will discuss our own reactions and perspectives and have the opportunity to listen to others whose experiences are different from our own.

Feast and Imbibe generously donated their beautiful event space for this dinner and they will be providing the catering as well! The menu is below!

Tickets are $30 per person and include the dinner and conversation, but $10 tickets are also available. Please contact Lauren Grossman at 224-304-4236 or at hello@acrossthetable.org for more information!

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A Home on the Lake is a play about two Evanston families in two eras whose lives are disrupted by matters of property and race. In 1920, as the Great Migration begins to change the demographics of Evanston, two entrepreneurs—one white, one African American—make business deals that will result in the relocation of black residents to what will become, for generations thereafter, the city’s “black district.” Their business decisions have consequences for their own families, including one that isn’t revealed for nearly a century when the current descendants of those two families are faced with the question of who has a right to a home on the lake.

A fictional work inspired by the playwrights’ research, in addition to interviews of several Evanston community members conducted by the founder of Dear Evanston, Nina Kavin, this play delves into themes of displacement, equity, home ownership, and how communities are divided or come together during times of upheaval.

This play is a collaboration between Fleetwood Jourdain Theatre and Piven Theatre Workshop. The two have a long history of collaborative projects with the overarching mission of finding ways to enhance each other’s work.  The two theaters are committed to finding new ways of engaging and cross-pollinating their diverse audiences, and developing a love of theatre from early education through to active audience members.

The Dinner Menu Is:
– Mixed Green Salad – Shredded Carrots, Tomato, Cucumber, Radish, Red Onion- , French Dressing
– Blackened Cajun Salmon – Lemon, Parsley
– Grilled BBQ Mixed Chicken
– Hickory Barbecue, Brown Rice
– Mac & Cheese – Chef Carter’s Signature Blend
– Candied Yams
– Roasted Yams, Brown Sugar, Butter
– Pan Roasted Broccoli
– Corn Bread Muffin

How does your social class impact who you are? How does social class impact how you relate to the people in your community, your friends, your family and your co-workers? How does your access to resources shape your identity and your place in your community?

We will discuss our answers to these questions and more while surrounded by architectural models, plans, books and photographs in the cozy dining room (I mean conference room!) of Stuart Cohen and Julie Hacker Architects in Evanston.

To read more about to read more about the venue and to learn about Stuart Cohen and Julie Hacker’s work, please visit, www.cohen-hacker.com.

Dinner will be catered by The Caterist…the menu will be posted soon!

Tickets are $30 per person and Across the Table also offers tickets at the reduced rate option of $10 per person. Please contact Lauren Grossman at hello@acrossthetable.org for more information on how to register for the $10 option. Thank you!

Please join Across the Table for a delicious and beautiful dinner at Kabul House to talk about what it means to be a success!

Our topic of conversation is:
How do we, our families and our community define success?
Do you think you are a sucess? Where did you get this idea from? Everyone defines sucess differently and your opinion about whether or not you have become successful can be influenced by where you live, the house in which you grew up, your parents, your friends or all of the above! Join in an honest conversation about who we want to be and why we want to acheive what we do.

Tickets are $30 per person. Across The Table offers a $10, reduced rate option in order to allow for anyone to participate, regardless of ability to pay. If you are interested in joining us for the $10 option, please contact Lauren Grossman at hello@acrossthetable.org. She will let you know if those tickets are still available and will send you registration information. Thank you for your interest in joining Across the Table for dinner!

This dinner will be faciliated by the wonderful Claire Kaufman!

Claire Kaufman has over eight years of experience working to foster social justice through her professional work in the nonprofit sector and through her volunteer work as well. She recently organized the Net Impact San Francisco Professional Chapter’s Annual Conference, which brought together 300 changemakers and inspired Claire to further her work to create a positive impact in her broader community.  Claire believes that Across the Table’s conversations inspire all of us and elicit hope in the future of our society. Claire is honored and excited to have the opportunity to facilitate a dinner for Across the Table this month.

To officially welcome sring and this time of growth and renewal, Across the Table will be having dinner surounded by flowers at Saville Flowers in Evanston!

Do you think it is possible to ever really change?

Are we the same people we were as kids? What about us is fundamentally the same and what is different?

Do you want to change? Who and what influences our ability to change or to stay the same?

What are the factors in your life that have caused you or inspired you to change?

What has prevented you from changing for either the good or the bad?

Dinner will be catered by The Caterist…The menu will be posted soon!