The Port Cafe 2.0!

This summer, the Port Café celebrated its 1st birthday! Yes, that’s right folks, we have been bringing the Port community together around food for a year, and we hope for many more years to come

​At The Port Café’s second leadership retreat, we came together to share our thoughts, experiences and constructive feedback on our past events and our hopes for future ones.

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​​We also assembled with a trusted ally and friend Ari Pliskin of Unity Tables, who facilitated the discussion and assisted us to figure out our leadership structure for The Port Café moving forward.

It was important for us to maintain some of the roles initially appointed when the Port Cafe began, and also incorporate new members into leadership positions. We formally decided to name ourselves the Port Cafe board, and elected folks into different roles.

We are excited about our new appointments, and most importantly our upcoming events for the fall! Here are the leadership results from our retreat:

Co –Chairs: Renae and Abe
Secretary: Erin 
Treasurer: Tracy
Logistics: Cleola, Joan, Marian
Program: Abe, Renae, Tracy & Romaine
Business: Cleola, Erin, Joan, Romaine and Tracy
​Communications: Cleola & Joan

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We held our first Port Café Meal under our new leadership structure at Pentecostal Tabernacle church on Monday, June 29th . We celebrated our local community gardeners from the Port community and were grateful for ample food contributions from Food For Free. Each member of the Port Café team and other communities members contributed delicious dishes as well. We transformed the church’s basement into a gardener’s utopia with all the garden themed decorations and plants and flowers in the space. The dinner was a great success with over 35 people in attendance; it was a multi-ethnic and an intergenerational gathering. Our central question for the evening was, “What do you hope to see grow in Cambridge?” Responses ranged from “more peace” to “affordable housing” to “cultivating food.”

Our second meal under our new structure took place on Sept. 21 and offered the theme of “Plentitude,” a continuation of our theme from the previous meal. We are proud to have some Port Cafe “regulars” and more and more people are running into people they already know when they come to our meals!

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Stay tuned for news from the Business committee soon...is a brick-and-mortar cafe in the works for the Port Cafe?

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