‘Sit with Us’ App: I Know What It Is Like to Eat Alone

‘Sit with Us’ App created by Teen so no student eats lunch alone

Not Your Average Social Network

As if social anxiety isn’t enough of a burden in middle school and high school, eating alone at lunch only heightens the reality of it.

Many students, including special needs students, are faced with the harsh reality of feeling friendless during lunch time; having no one to engage in conversation with while admiring all of the social cliques throughout the room laughing and discovering common ground.

A social networking app created by 16-year-old, Natalie Hampton, was designed in the hopes of banishing the feeling of solitude among kids. Sit With Us is free to download and is used by students that want other students to sit with them at lunch or during social events at school.

Users simply download the app, type in the name of their school and once the user has selected the school they belong to, they can then join in an event listed for that day and connect with the ambassador via the app. Users also have the option to become an ambassador and create their own event for students to join them.

The app has gained over 100,000 users, according to Natalie. It allows students to become ambassadors, meaning they can create an event and allow others to join or they could simply be the joiner for that event. In an interview with Natalie, she explained that she has a best friend with Cerebral Palsy as well as other friends who have special needs and that they are involved in Sit With Us.

“My close friend with Cerebral Palsy is in the process of starting a Sit With Us club at her school, which is exciting. My other friends are some of my best Ambassadors for the Sit With Us club at my school!” says Natalie.

No More Eating Alone

The intended message of the app is that it’s used for bringing people together of all different characteristics, which very well includes the special needs community. Natalie explains that in middle school, she ate lunch alone every day and understands what it’s like to feel disconnected from others. She went on to say, “I can only imagine that kids with special needs have an even greater fear to go up to strangers and ask if they can join the table.”

Thousands of people, throughout 7 countries worldwide, have become users of the Sit With Us app and the success isn’t only in numbers, it’s the individual gain each user gets when they begin to experience belonging to a peer community.

When Natalie was asked if she thought the app could be used by special needs students her response was, “Definitely! I think that every school has kids like me who are happy to welcome anyone at the lunch table.” After the app went viral on IOS, many parents of autistic children wrote to her informing her that their kids have a preference towards Androids due to their larger screens. With that being said, The Android version is in the process of becoming available in the near future!

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