Founder, Dana Ainsworth

Every Sunday, for as long as I can remember, my grandfather prepared a huge pot of pasta sauce and assembled the family. I missed that tradition terribly when I moved away. To compensate, I found myself gathering friends and strangers around makeshift tables wherever I happened to be. In India, plates were set over a discarded door while sauce simmered on a camp stove. In Costa Rica, card tables were draped with sarongs while my friends tried out the newest recipe taught by the Frenchman up the hill. Those moments have come to define my life.

In 2021, I simultaneously launched Wonder Table, took a job as the Event Manager for a statewide book festival, and began a doctoral degree in Education. I’d set out to study the impact of childhood trauma on development and behavior in schools and was certain my future was in academia. But after bearing witness to the powerful effects of gathering, the trajectory of my life was changed. By the time I graduated, I was entirely and irrevocably smitten with the world of community building. I have come to see meaningful connection and belonging as foundational to the conditions in which people and communities can thrive, and as a powerful counterweight to some of the forces that contribute to adversity. The communities we build shape the people we become.

Thankfully, the educational wisdom I’d gleaned hasn’t been wasted. I now apply that knowledge to design containers for deep community connection and transformation. I believe the most meaningful impact I can have on the world around me is to build an accessible practice of gathering that mirrors the rhythms by which we historically marked our lives.