The Happy Community Project is made of many collaborations

The Happy Community Project continues to gain momentum

New communities are starting up, third party organizations are taking an interest in us, and most importantly, real projects are getting launched – projects that bring people together as a community.

The foundational idea is that communities that are highly socially connected across diversity enjoy a greater sense of belonging, meaning, sufficiency, security and fairness – the fundamentals for a contented life. I recently had a meeting with Anne who captured our goals beautifully. “I used to be able to walk our streets and meet people I knew – it used to be a social event. Now people don’t walk, they drive up to the store they want, and if they do walk, they have their head down and you don’t get a chance to make those connections. I want people to remember how important those accidental connections are to their wellbeing. We used to know and now we have forgotten.”

Sackville is committed to remembering.

That is why they are launching several projects where people can get to know each other by doing things together. They are holding Open Houses (the first one is this Wednesday), they are designing their community garden so that people meet each other, they are organizing their Best Recipes Project so it makes for high involvement of people playing together and they are collecting stories of their past so they remember social connections.

Windsor NS is taking a next big step forward.

A strong group of women and men are meeting on June 12^th to embrace the Happy Community Project for their community. They want a community to continue their tradition of standing up for others, celebrating together their rich historical and social past and enjoy a sense of prosperous wellbeing. They want to do this by creating and integrating with existing projects that give their citizens meaningful and fun ways to interact with each other.

Hydrostone North is a unique diverse community within the boundaries of Halifax.

This is a community that already knows about resiliency after rebuilding itself from the greatest man made explosion before Hiroshima and the uprooting of its Black Community and still working at healing the wounds. They are coming together June 13^th to bring the Happy Community project to their community of diversity, cultural richness and traditions. They look forward to cross fertilizing the many active organizations within their community with social connections that bring greater wellbeing and resiliency to their community.

We are collaborating.

We are in early discussions with several organizations that are taking an interest in the Happy Community Project. They share our interest and concern for the wellbeing and resiliency of our children and grandchildren. They know that happy communities can provide the bedrock for humanity to weather the incredible disruptions coming our way. We look forward to jointly bringing a new way of remembering the importance and the process of having strong socially connected communities. I expect to share in coming blogs how we are collaborating to make social connections the basis for stronger, more resilient communities.

I am constantly inspired

I am inspired by people reaching out to make social connections. What we need is a way to make that easy. That is what the Happy Community Project is about.

My goal has been to make this a scalable process. This summer and fall, I start on developing that process. We now are reaching the point where it is clear for the need, the desire and the effectiveness of the Happy Community Project. If you have something to add to this process, please reach out to me.