“Bountiful Table 2000 will take place rain or shine on Saturday, Oct. 7, from 1-3 p.m. at Bayview Corner, site of Bayview Hall and the Bayview Farmer’s Market. The table will be set with salmon, harvest soup and bread provided by Chef Tom French and Tableau. The community is invited to bring cold side dishes as well as items that have special meaning in setting the table. The event is free and open to all.For Chef Tom and Katie French, the tradition of gathering around the table for meals provides a time when conversation flourishes, ideas flow and communication links are built. That philosophy is what lies behind their organization Tableau and its ambitious premise: to bring individuals, families, communities and nations back to the ‘Peace Table’ to engage in peaceful dialogue and create action strategies and innovative solutions to complex issues in our communities.The Frenches and Tableau call it a Bountiful Table, and they are setting one here on Whidbey next Saturday, laying it with food and inviting everyone to join them in the time-honored ritual of a harvest celebrationThe event will feature breaking of bread, and individuals will be invited to share their favorite stories about food or meals they have enjoyed, French said. People are also encouraged to bring items that have special meaning to assist in setting the table. French himself will facilitate a conversation among participants about hunger, education and environment that shifts the focus from pessimism to optimism.Most of these conversations taking place in the world are shadowed by lack and scarcity, French said. Bountiful Table’s contention is that there are enough resources, technology and food in the world for all, and that there is a willingness and desire by enough people on the planet to effect lasting and positive change. We need to ‘relanguage’ the problem of hunger, shift the conversation, to one that is built on abundance and generosity: There is enough for everyone. he said.A professional chef whose 30-year experience has included restaurants and other food services businesses, Tom French has also worked with homeless and disadvantaged people, aging and disability services, shelter meal programs and childcare sites. As a community organizer of emergency food distribution he knew there was no shortage of food, he said. But he also found that many of the people living on the cusp of society are disenfranchised, disconnected, and have limited access to safe, healthy and nutritious food.In my own community (of the Northwest), renowned for its affluence and progress, thousands of people, many of them children and elders, go to bed hungry each and every night, French said. Thousands of others are malnourished or suffer some effect from a lack of nutritious foods. You can’t build a future on the backs of malnourished children.The Frenches have already produced one event that convened more than 100 people from 17 countries representing 62 organizations at one table. It was called Tableau@WTO and took place last December during the WTO meeting in Seattle, and while they took part in a meal together, the participants explored what French calls innovative dialogue for solutions to world hunger. Since then French has traveled around the United States and to other countries with his message, and many communities around the world will be holding similar Bountiful Table events on Oct. 7. The locations are both near and far: Seattle and Santa Fe, Kamchatka in the Russian Far East, Salt Spring Island, B.C., Pakistan, Delhi, Israel, France, as well as 17 other locations in the United States.The knowledge that we are all doing something at the same time creates a connection, French said. The following day, Oct. 8, is perhaps the most important, he said: Waking up committed to doing something about world hunger. That’s when the real work will begin: building projects, connecting efforts and resources and identifying priorities. October 7 should become a milestone in a workable vision: That everyone should live in a world that’s at peace, and that all should have access to education and to safe, healthy and nutritious food.French himself recently returned from British Columbia and New York where he participated in the filming of Feast of Fields and the launching of the Southeast Asia initiative for the Hunger Project. The Bountiful Table in Bayview will also serve as a launch for The Experience Food Project, an international, multi-media educational project to be sponsored by the Bountiful Table in 2001. Education is a prime ingredient in the project mix, French said. Among the programs planned or already under way are interactive classroom projects to help young people understand sources of food and the human condition in parts of the world where people go hungry. A cooking show is in pilot production. The Coastal Foodshed Alliance is working to establish a network of shared information with a focus on child nutrition and meals for elders. Breaking Barriers is a workshop integrating the issues of hunger, education and environment for community leaders, educators and social service workers.And the original garden space at the Whidbey Institute is currently being reclaimed and designed as a learning garden, providing field trips that combine workdays in the garden and workshops for agencies and organizations working with young people, the homeless, and other groups. The project is founded on the premise that community-based solutions are the most workable and that they empower and inspire people to make a difference where it matters most to them, French said.With a community will, people do amazing things. They can will into existence that no one in the community will be hungry. It is so unnecessary. This is not broad sweeping change. It’s back to community involvement. It’s so possible. “