[Note that we ordered only 30 dinners, and more than 40 people have RSVPed, so if you aren't one of the first 30, please bring your own dinner, e.g. from McClelland Express.]

The featured guest at this edition of Dinners With Interesting People is 2017 Penn grad Jared Fenton, who is the executive director of the Reflect Organization. Jared will be joining via Zoom, but this just in: Cameron McConkey, Reflect's COO, will be joining us in person.

During his first year at Penn, Jared tried to eat lunch every day with a student who was sitting alone. He found that these students were open to getting lunch with him, but they were not open about who they truly were and what they were truly feeling.

Then a student in his class died by suicide, and he found one of his closest friends in acute crisis. He realized that loneliness, isolation, and masking were debilitating and harmful to many of his fellow students, and wanted to do something about it. Jared was enrolled in Penn's Civic Scholars Program, which encouraged formal research into a community service topic of his choice, and so he produced a mixed-methods project examining the phenomenon of "Penn Face", and founded the Reflect organization, which has grown to include chapters at schools across the country.

While still working as Reflect's executive director, Jared is now enrolled in the MBA program at Stanford, so he'll be joining us via Zoom. But you can join us in person for dinner and discussion at 6:00pm in McClelland South Lounge -- please RSVP here.