In the fall of 2012, there was no brainstorming or long conversations needed to prompt the great idea. It was a simple exchange between Fr. Charlie Fermeglia and Clyde Beffa, co-owner and wine director of K&L Wine Merchants. They stood outside at Clyde’s car in front of the rectory at Our Lady of the Pillar Catholic Church in Half Moon Bay, California. Clyde unloaded some wine as a gift for the priests and mentioned that he wanted to do something special in honor of his mother’s life. Fr. Charlie popped the question, “How about a wine tasting?” Clyde’s answer was “Yes!”—and the rest is history. What followed in less than 6 weeks would engage the parish family and gather people from the greater community. The 3-hour event would also spawn the Table of Plenty (TOP), a weekly supper for struggling families, seniors, and homeless people in our coastal community—and what could be a more moving tribute to Mary Beffa, an immigrant mother, than to know her son is carrying on the legacy that she taught him at the table, “there is always room for one more.” Again at first glance, one might think these two innovators didn’t have much in common. However, the partnership isn’t so surprising once you know that love of family and deeply held values are the common ground. Both are sons of immigrant families. Both love cooking and good food. Both care about their community and the people in it—and were raised by mothers who planted the seed—the one that shapes who we become and how we see and care about the world around us.

That first wine tasting event started what would be the early beginnings of Table of Plenty. Through that single event that lasted 3 hours, we were able to raise over sixteen thousand dollars which represented Table of Plenty’s seed money for the first year, allowing us to prepare and serve warm, healthy supper for struggling families and homeless people every Thursday evening in Half Moon Bay. Table of Plenty stands to this day as a tribute to Clyde Beffa’s mother who believe that regardless of how little or how much food you have, there is always room for one more at the dinner table.

There were a few quick and hard lessons to learn. Producing a wine tasting event was new to Fr. Charlie—and the notion of the Table of Plenty had not yet emerged; Sr. Jeanette had not yet arrived on the scene — and there was a great need to bring people together. Tasting wines from around the world provided a fun, community- building opportunity.

The work began by forming a small multitalented, cross-disciplinary wine tasting leadership team and building a meaningful purpose. Fr. Charlie hand selected a few people known for delivering results and by answering a key question: What have you always wanted to do? Fr. Charlie began rattling off every detail (right down to the meal itself) that he had envisioned about what would become the Table of Plenty, a weekly supper for the hungry. He spoke of the need he knew existed and of inspirations experienced in Half Moon Bay and San Francisco, as well as biblical stories of Jesus feeding the hungry and helping the needy. “The vision isn’t a soup-kitchen buffet, but a nice sit-down meal respectfully served on tables with tablecloths. It’s exciting to me to think that something like this could be a bridge to communication among people of different cultures, lifestyles, opinions, of faith or of no faith.” The vision for the Table of Plenty gave everyone something significant to believe in and strive to create together.

Sr. Jeanette moved into town and accepted Fr. Charlie’s offer to be TOP’s founding director. She built our TOP all-volunteer team. Our first supper was in January 2013. The rest is history…

Excerpts above are from about our founding story published in Leader to Leader, an award-winning global business journal (John Wiley –Josey Bass 2015): “View from the TOP: Universal Principles for Building Community and Achieving Results” written by Fr. Charlie Fermeglia, Sr. Jeanette Braun, and Debbe Kennedy by invitation. Read the article or download a copy at this link: http://bit.ly/1NWbaR5