It just warms my heart, it feels so good that everybody wants to do this and they want to participate.”

Barbara Passmore

More than 600 friends and neighbors gathered along the Little Compton Commons Sunday afternoon, taking the rare opportunity to share in a meal together as a community. The annual Little Compton community dinner had been derailed for the past two years due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but returned with the biggest turnout ever in its three-year history.

“This is the largest amount of people that we’ve had, in our other two years. It’s grown each year and I hope it continues to grow,” said Barbara Passmore, who helped found the event in 2018. “I can’t express how much it means to myself and to our community for all of you to come out and share, and give, and take.”

The community dinner grew out of an event her daughter attended while living in Colorado, in which a community held a dinner after a devastating tragedy. Passmore brought up the idea of an informal potluck here in 2017, and then brought it to the town council to make it a reality in 2018.

“I thought that the community needed to come together, and because of the state of the world at that time, I had this desire that we needed to bond,” Passmore said. “The first year, I had crossed my fingers and was hoping for 100 people…we ended up with over 300.”

In 2019, more than 500 people attended, a significant increase from the previous year. Passmore, who has lived in town for the past 91 years, was touched to see how many neighbors, friends and family came out to celebrate togetherness.

“I remember just standing here and being amazed thinking, ‘Oh my gosh, they’re coming from this way, coming from that way, they just won’t stop coming!’” recalled Passmore. “I was on a high for like two days, I was just so wound up and so happy. People were smiling so wide, and that’s all that matters.”

The number of people who registered this year was more than she could ever have imagined.

“It is just amazing,” said Passmore. “Obviously, there is a need. There’s a need to do something together, to try to bond with those that you don’t know, or even those that you do know and maybe haven’t seen in years. Maybe this is the only time that you’ll see them, or maybe the last time that you'll see them, which has happened. It just warms my heart, it feels so good that everybody wants to do this and they want to participate.”

The dinner united neighbors young and old, and guests were asked to bring a dessert to share with everyone. The dessert table this year was long enough to spread across five parking spaces in front of Town Hall.

“I think it’s amazing and so much fun,” said Susan Chase, who has lived in Little Compton for 45 years. “I invited my family, and one of my sons and his family to come, and they had no idea that it would be this magnificent.”

Each year, Passmore has walked up and down the Commons to ring the dinner bell to signal when it was time to dig in. This year, she had two special helpers ring the bells for her.

“I just picked out two little girls to ring the bell, because those are memories that are going to last with them. It’s all about making memories,” she said. “People don’t have memories like that anymore. It’s all about building wonderful memories and the people from everywhere who come out. It’s not just Little Compton, it’s bigger than that.”