The nearly 3400 educatee at Boca Raton Community High School in Boca Raton , Florida , come from a variety of cultural , ethnic , and class backgrounds , but they all partake in one thing in common : No one has to ride at a dejeuner table alone .
accord toPeople , wads of volunteers in the shoal ’s We Dine Together clubhouse roam the ground every tiffin full stop look for classmates who might be new to the area or are otherwise feeling left out of societal group , making sure that no one is without companionship .
We Dine Togetheroriginated during the 2015 - 16 schooling class , when then - junior Denis Estimon and his ally agreed that their expectant scholar body — which represents members of more than 70 countries — could use a means to bring meeter closer together . A native of Haiti , Estimon call up being 6 years old and feeling bashful during lunch .
While it was an experience he did n’t desire others to share , he was n’t certain what to do until an after - school program counselor challenged him to receive a solution .
“ At Boca High , if you calculate at the cafeteria from a raspberry ’s optic view , on one side you ’ll see more isolated tiddler , and on the other side you ’ll see the football players , " Estimon tell ABC News . " I told him it should n’t be this mode . He challenged me to do something about it and that ’s essentially what I did . "
With thehelpof English instructor Jordan Hernandez , Estimon come out the course of study in August 2016 . It ’s grown to let in around 80 appendage who search for attendee eating alone or who bond over slices of pizza or jam-packed lunches duringweekly meetingsin Hernandez ’s classroom . If a member finds a teen in solitude , they ’ll politely invite them to join the group . All of those interaction , Estimon believes , help further a gumption of community of interests and kinship that can bring people closer together .
Kinsley Soorestal , 17 , was one of the found members and told mass that fellow students “ really appreciate it . Maybe for the first clock time , they palpate like they belong . ”
