Kaitlyn Hughes | features editor

The smell of a home-cooked meal wafted out the door of the Lutheran University Center and onto the crowded Forbes Avenue in Oakland.

This is guests’ first sign of free community dinners hosted by The Commonwealth of Oakland, a progressive, Jesus-centered community of faith, on the second Sunday of each month.

Building community is the congregation’s main purpose with the meals.

“The more time we spend online, the more we gravitate toward our own bubbles, and we lose out on in-person experiences. And, we lose out on conversations with people who we might not necessarily agree with,” said co-founder the Rev. Mike Holohan.

To battle this “sequestered” reality, the dinners are carried out in a specific way.

Unlike free-meal soup kitchens, which are buffet style, the dinners are executed in a family-style manner. The food is brought to the table in platters that are passed around, allowing guests to serve themselves.

Colorful plates and glasses were scattered across two long tables with patterned tablecloths draped over the top. An assortment of flowers in vases served as a centerpiece alongside Sunday’s meal — a scene seemingly taken straight out of a grandmother’s dining room on Thanksgiving day.

With different parts of the meal spread across the 12-person table, the guests are sometimes required to talk to the people around them, so they can obtain their desired dish. This set up helps break the ice, making it easier for the group to connect.

The main goal of Commonwealth when it started in 2018 was to be a space that brings together students, Oakland residents and people who are experiencing homelessness, Rev. Holohan said

“We’re also a progressive form of Christianity, an LGBTQ-affirming congregation, which there are not many of in Oakland,” Rev. Holohan said. “We really wanted to create a safe space for queer folks who wanted to practice Christianity as their religious tradition.”

Although the congregation is part of The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), the dinner is one of the least religious events. The group does not say grace before meals to make everyone feel welcome, regardless of their religious beliefs. Instead, Rev. Holohan led everyone in a moment of mindfulness and gratitude.

The non-religious aspect is helpful for Lou Deemer, who had bad experiences with religious culture throughout his past.

“I’m very skittish around church,” Deemer said.

Around the time he began to initiate the process of opening up to these spaces again, he met the Rev. Erin Angeli, co-founder of the congregation, at a Pride event.

After speaking to Rev. Angeli and realizing she was also part of the LGBTQ+ community, Deemer became interested in getting involved in the congregation.

“Connecting, particularly, with a queer leader felt really important to me,” he said.

Although he does not take the congregation on as a personal identity, Deemer enjoys that it’s an innovative space. He never feels obligated to have a certain experience, identity or feeling about being in the congregation.

“I think having been in a space that was so highly pressurized for so long, it feels great to step outside of that pressure,” Deemer said.

Commonwealth is the result of church planting, the process of making a new church where there wasn’t one before. This aspect gives the congregation flexibility within their practices, something an established church might not have with its predetermined values and culture, Rev. Angeli said.

When church planting, the founders looked for where they could “lend a hand,” which landed them in Oakland.

“There’s so many people who are food insecure in this neighborhood,” Rev. Angeli said. “There are little markets here and there, but there isn’t a big established grocery store, and a lot of people are living around the line of poverty, or kind of at risk of that. And, people are also craving community.”

As of 2022, 10.9% of the population lives below the poverty line in Oakland, according to Data USA.

When Commonwealth started, Rev. Angeli noticed a distrust within the community.

“People come into Oakland and get what they need from Oakland and then leave,” Rev. Angeli said. “They don’t think about the people who actually live here.”

The congregation tries to build a sense of community for the people in the area, including the students.

Riya Sims, a public health and pre-medical major at the University of Pittsburgh, came to the event to get her volunteer hours in.

Originally from Los Angeles, Sims said the gathering reminded her of back home.

She helped the congregation prepare Sunday’s meal — a sweet potato stew with rice and Brussels sprouts. This not only relieved her built up stress for an upcoming exam, but it opened her mind up to try a new dish.

If time allows, Sims plans on returning to the dinner in April.

“You don’t have to fit into a certain criteria to show up,” Sims said. “I think it can help a lot of students who don’t have a community, find a community.”