Dominic Ray Lagman
The Communal Table
How can our community support youths facing homelessness through meaningful interactions and relationships to get them out of homelessness?
The Communal Table is a restaurant that employs youths facing homelessness, providing them with a source of income, work experience, and support from the community & our chef mentor staff. Our youth staff are able to gain culinary experience while working here which they can apply into their daily lives in the future, obtaining valuable soft skills (communication, leadership, initiative, etc.), and showcasing off their potential in society when given an opportunity. This restaurant provides another place where people can come and eat a great meal and support our youths facing homelessness, breaking the stigma and creating meaningful relationships and interactions with them. The Communal Table is another stepping stone opportunity for them to get their lives back on track.
Insight
Based on research and survey results, the Millennial and Gen Z populations go out to eat at restaurants at least once a week and spend around $15 or more when dining in. Utilizing that regular social behaviour, Communal Table provides another place for people to eat and help out a good cause that some people care deeply about while having a unique dining experience. These populations are the determining factor of the future for these homeless youth.
Idea
The Communal Table is a restaurant where we hire youths facing homelessness, providing them with an income, work experience, hard and soft skills, personal support, and mentorship. The restaurant connects the community with the youths facing homelessness by showcasing their potential in society while creating meaningful interactions and relationships through conversations and a unique dining experience. This helps the problem of youth homelessness and diminishes the stigma that comes with it, and reveals some of its realities, like soup kitchen type meals and stories.
Impact
The Communal Table will create more job opportunities for youths facing homelessness and provide them with some essentials in life, like work experience and meaningful relationships with those around them. The community will also be involved. As they visit and eat at The Communal Table, they too will learn more about the issue of youth homelessness and get a chance to support them through conversation, sharing knowledge, and support, which will slowly destigmatize the misconceptions of youth homelessness and help more youths get their lives back on track.
Biography
Dominic Ray Lagman, a Toronto based designer, passionate about design sustainability, design through play, children education design, and human relationships with design. He is a designer that likes to create solutions with their hands, someone who isn’t afraid to get a little bit messy. Always analyzing human behaviours and how things work, Dominic is always looking for other ways to improve how people complete tasks, trying to find a more efficient solution. Having the determination to find a solution to the problem no matter what is how he works, while tackling the problem through various lenses and with a positive mindset. The solution comes from looking at all the angles and taking in all the factors of the problem.