On Fri., March 15, the ASL Club hosted the first silent dinner event in the Borland-Manske Center, which everyone was welcome to attend, from club members to those who have never used ASL before. The only requirement was to not talk from 5:30 to 7 p.m.

Junior Maddie Durkin, the club president, hosted and prepared the silent dinner. The event consisted of the national anthem performed in ASL, followed by a prayer in ASL, dinner, a joke in ASL and wrapping up with various games. 

Silent dinners are prevalent in Deaf Culture to demonstrate how difficult sharing a meal can be for those who are hard of hearing or deaf. It provides a sense of community for those in the culture and allows people to use ASL.

“It’s a different language, it’s a different culture, even I don’t understand it completely. That’s what deaf people are dealing with everyday,” Durkin said. “The dinners really bring awareness to it.” The food consisted of a baked potato bar with toppings, salad, tomato soup, dinner rolls and the desserts were chocolate-covered strawberries, cream puffs and fruit tarts. 

Durkin was grateful for how everything turned out, especially for the alumni fund covering the dinner cost that Bon Apétit catered. “Our food was covered, which was a big part of the event, with everyone being able to eat dinner together,” she said. “There was a lot of stuff behind the scenes that did take a while, but it all came together in the end.”

ASL club’s vice president junior Reagan Wagner, shared her favorite part about the silent dinner event. “It was really amazing to see ASL and Deaf Culture come into the Concordia community. ASL is such a beautiful language and is often underrecognized,” she said. “Being able to see people experience it at totally different levels of knowledge was really cool.”

At the dinner, they had different activities such as coloring, Pictionary and word-matching games. There was plenty of time to just socialize through ASL, sticky notes or writing on the whiteboards in the classroom.

“You don’t really need to use words to communicate; you can have a lot of fun, laugh, play games and experience a new language and culture,” Wagner said.

A member of the club, senior Beth Sedgwick, joined last semester when Durkin first started it. Sedgwick mentioned she had always wanted to learn ASL and finally got the opportunity to do so because of the club. All club members are at different levels in terms of their knowledge of ASL.

“I can learn within the community and it’s been really helpful going to the weekly meetings. I knew we had this silent dinner coming up and I wanted to be able to communicate,” she said. The club meets weekly this semester and anyone is welcome to join.

She mentioned many of the big takeaways from the event that night. “There’s so many ways we can communicate,” Sedgwick said. “We can even just glare at each other until the point gets across, and eventually, we will figure it out. Tonight showed that community and friendship transcends being able to speak in the same language.”

In the future, Durkin hopes to host a silent dinner once a semester and wants more people to come and experience the unique event. The club welcomes anyone to join or attend events at any level of ASL knowledge. 

Interested in joining the ASL club? Contact Maddie Durkin through email at madison.durkin@eagles.cui.edu. Weekly meetings are held every Wed. this semester from 2:30 to 3:30 p.m. at Eagles’ Landing.

Tags: clubs

---

About Heather Hershfield

More articles by Heather Hershfield