I have a confession to make. I love people, deeply, genuinely, and yet, walking into a room full of strangers is one of the hardest things I know. There is a moment, just before the door opens, where every instinct tells me to turn around, to invent an errand, to go home and settle for the idea of connection rather than the terrifying, wonderful reality of it. That feeling followed me to Song Hotel on the evening of Purposeful Plates. And by the end of the night, I was so glad I had ignored it.
Purposeful Plates is an ongoing dining series curated by Song Hotel in collaboration with OneAnother, a kindness-first platform that connects people through volunteering and community. The concept is beautifully simple: bring small groups of strangers together, feed them something wonderful, and build a conversation around giving back. On this particular evening, thirty of us arrived not entirely sure what to expect, and left changed in small, quiet, meaningful ways.
Song Kitchen set the scene beautifully, warm lighting, conversation tables that discouraged retreat into private pairs, and a gentle hum of anticipation in the air. It is the kind of room that makes you feel that something worthwhile is about to happen. The team at Song Hotel have built their identity around the idea that everyday hospitality can carry a bigger purpose, and you feel that intention the moment you walk in.
“Despite living in a world where we’re constantly connected, many people are feeling increasingly isolated because we’ve lost the habit of being truly present with one another.”
— Jon Ackary, General Manager, Song Hotel
Jon welcomed us with the kind of warmth that puts even the shyest guest at ease. His words landed gently but with real weight. Connection, he reminded us, does not need to be complex. It can begin with something as ordinary and profound as sitting down at a table, together, with intention.
What moved me most about the evening was meeting people who have turned their compassion into action, quietly, consistently, without fanfare. The speakers shared their work not as a performance but as an invitation. Here is what they are doing, and why it matters.
JON ACKARY
General Manager, Song Hotel & Song Kitchen
songhotels.com.au
Jon is the architect of Purposeful Plates and the driving force behind Song Hotel’s belief that commercial success must translate into genuine social impact. He sees hospitality not as an industry but as a philosophy, one where every meal, every gathering, is an opportunity to build something larger than the room it happens in. His vision of connection as a daily practice, not a sentiment, set the tone for the whole evening.
ALEX MILLER
General Manager, Service Delivery — YWCA Australia
ywca.org.au
Alex leads the programmes at YWCA Australia that address some of our community’s most urgent and least visible crises: housing insecurity, women’s homelessness, and domestic and family violence. She spoke with a steady clarity that made the enormity of this work feel both urgent and approachable. Listening to her, I was reminded that behind every statistic is a person who deserves to be safe, seen, and supported — and that organisations like YWCA are on the front line of making that possible every single day.
GEORGE KAROUNIS
Manager, Our Big Kitchen — Bondi
obk.org.au
George manages Our Big Kitchen, a community-run initiative based in Bondi that delivers over 80,000 meals a year to people in need across New South Wales. There is something quietly radical about that number, 80,000 acts of nourishment, 80,000 small dignities restored. George spoke about food as a vehicle for belonging, about kitchens as places where strangers become neighbours. His warmth was infectious, and more than a few of us at the table found ourselves wondering how we might volunteer a Saturday morning.
The conversation that unfolded around social isolation and loneliness was open and honest. There was no pretence that these are easy problems, or that a single evening solves anything. But there was real energy in the room, the kind that emerges when people who care find each other.
Food did what food has always done: it slowed us down, gave us something to share, and made the conversation feel natural. Song Kitchen’s menu for the evening was thoughtful and generous, drawing on native Australian ingredients alongside beautifully crafted classics. Each dish arrived like a small gift, and the table, strangers only an hour earlier, moved from polite exchanges to easy laughter somewhere between the arancini and the braised beef cheek.
Song Kitchen’s menu for the evening was a quiet act of storytelling in itself, thoughtful, generous, and deeply rooted in this country’s landscape. The kitchen wove native Australian ingredients through each course with a confidence that never felt forced, and the shared format meant dishes arrived at the centre of the table rather than in front of individuals, which is exactly the point.
We began with light, bright flavours: a sumac bruschetta sharp with tomato and basil, silky mushroom and leek arancini, and a chilled South Australian king prawn served with apple mousse that was elegant without trying too hard. The kind of opening that settles a room.
The mains were where the evening really found its voice. A braised beef cheek, tender to the point of surrender, arrived with outback spices and a red wine jus that tasted like it had been given all the time in the world. The standout, for this table at least, was Karkalla’s native seafood curry: crispy fish wing alongside Warrigal greens and a rice infused with indigenous flavours. It was the dish that made people stop mid-conversation and simply eat for a moment.
We finished as all good evenings should, with a dark chocolate pudding, its richness cut through by an Ooray plum butterscotch and a scoop of vanilla ice cream. The kind of dessert that earns a brief, contented silence before the conversation picks up again, warmer than before.
I walked in shy. I walked out with three new contacts in my phone, a renewed determination to look into Our Big Kitchen’s volunteering programme, and a residual warmth that lasted several days. That is no small thing.
Kindness, Jon Ackary reminded us that evening, is something you actively practise, not simply something you talk about. The same might be said of community. It does not arrive ready-made. It is built, slowly, at tables like the one we shared, by people willing to sit down with strangers and stay curious about what they might find.
Alex Miller’s work at YWCA Australia, George Karounis’s 80,000 meals at Our Big Kitchen, the small radical act of OneAnother connecting volunteers to people who need them, these are not grand gestures from a distant world. They are things happening right here, carried out by ordinary people who decided to show up. That is what inspires me most: not the scale of the effort, but the ordinariness of the people doing it.
If you are like me, someone who finds community deeply appealing and the path to it sometimes daunting, I would encourage you gently: go. Book a seat at the next Purposeful Plates. Sit next to someone you do not know. Let the food do what food has always done. You may be surprised by what, and who, you find.
Future events will be announced by Song Hotel in the months ahead. Keep an eye on the Purposeful Plates events page — and consider this your invitation to be a little braver than you think you can be.
