MOYIE SPRINGS — The community is invited for supper as Moyie Springs hosts a chili and soup dinner as part of the Innovia Foundation's Longest Table initiative to celebrate America's 250th anniversary.

The chili and soup dinner will be held Saturday, Oct. 31, at Moyie Springs City Hall, 3331 Roosevelt. The free dinner, hosted by the city and Innovia Foundation, will take place from 3-6 p.m.

"Please come and meet your neighbors in our city," Moyie Springs said in a flyer announcing the dinner.

There is no charge to attend the dinner, which is being catered by Mill Cafe and Bake Shop. However, residents are invited to bring a dessert to share if they would like to do so.

"As our nation marks the 250th anniversary of its founding, this initiative offers a meaningful opportunity to reflect on where we are today—both as a country and as a region—and to imagine the hopes and possibilities we hold for the future," Innovia Foundation officials said previously of the movement.

The organization has awarded a series of microgrants to bring The Longest Table to communities across Eastern Washington and North Idaho throughout 2026, with Moyie Springs being among the most recent recipients.

On Longest Table's YouTube channel, organizers said the meals are a way to connect communities and residents.

"Four years and tens of thousands of people later, we've learned something," organizers said in a video on the initiative's YouTube channel. "This simple, joyful idea, one as old as time, isn't just nice, it's necessary, it's foundational because you can't solve problems without trust."

The meals, such as the upcoming dinner in Moyie Springs, build that trust on a hyper-local level in communities and neighborhoods.

"Trust is that quiet force that everything else depends on," officials said in the video. "Without it, nothing works."

As the nation marks 250 years, initiative officials said the movement offers a chance to reflect on where we are today, both as a country and a region, and to imagine the hopes and possibilities we hold for the future.

At such an event, magic happens, Longest Table officials said of the initiative: Eighty-nine percent meet someone new, 83% feel less lonely, 87% feel better about their neighborhood and 81% want to get involved in their neighborhood.

"Each table, it's proof," Longest Table officials said in the video. "We have what we need to rebuild trust, community and a sense of shared responsibility, and to rediscover connection and joy."

By sitting down together and connecting, Longest Table gatherings transform public spaces into welcoming places of connection, where strangers become neighbors and neighbors become friends. By coming together around the table, participants are invited into conversations that foster understanding, reduce isolation and strengthen trust across communities.

The Longest Table is presented in partnership with STCU. Learn more and apply for a grant at innovia.org/the-longest-table.