Is Lexington an inclusive community? 11,000 people sat down to talk it over Wednesday.

More than 11,000 people took part Wednesday in community-wide discussions about how Lexington and Central Kentucky can be a more inclusive community.

Organized by the Blue Grass Community Foundation, the third “On the Table” community-wide event centered on topics such as belonging and inclusion in Fayette and the surrounding counties. Organizers said more than 11,000 people signed up to attend one of 100 in-person conversations. Results from Wednesday’s conversations will help the Blue Grass Community Foundation, Lexington and surrounding counties possibly change policies to address inequalities.

Global Lex, the city’s global engagement center on Versailles Road, hosted one of those conversations where more than three dozen people talked about belonging and inclusion. The conversation at Global Lex centered on the city’s refugee and international population. Other On the Table sites focused on topics such as aging and disabled populations and LGBTQ issues.

“More than 180 languages are spoken in Fayette County,” said Isabel Taylor, the multicultural affairs coordinator for the city and Global Lex. In the past several years, one of the largest-growing segments of Lexington’s international population is people from Asia — China, Japan and South Korea.

“It’s about 40 percent now from Asia and only a third from Central and Latin America,” Taylor said. “What we are seeing is following national trends.”

With so many languages spoken in one county, the city has had to adapt quickly to get important information — including emergency weather warnings — to a linguistically diverse international population, Taylor said.

“We now have a language line for 911 and 311, the city’s general call line, that can translate information into various languages,” Taylor said.

Lexington Mayor Linda Gorton dropped by the lunchtime Global Lex discussion to thank the more than three dozen people who participated. Gorton had already visited several other On the Table sites that morning.

“If we never talk about these issues then we can never find out how to move forward with solutions,” Gorton said.

Blue Grass is one of 10 community foundations across the country participating in On the Table, a national initiative funded by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. The community-wide event is modeled after a similar effort in Chicago in 2014.

This story was originally published March 27, 2019 at 2:50 PM.