20,000 strangers sat at one 3-mile table — and funded a hospital that doesn't exist yet

On October 1, tens of thousands of Romanians filed down Unirii Boulevard in Bucharest and sat at a single table stretching 5,055 meters — more than three miles — past the Palace of Parliament. The table, built entirely from recycled materials and certified by a Guinness World Records adjudicator, broke the world record for the longest table made from recycled materials. But the record was the excuse, not the point: the afternoon was a fundraiser for Romania's first children's psychiatric hospital, an estimated €16.5 million (about $19 million) project expected to help more than 5,700 kids a year.