Southern Health-Sante Sud is calling on people all across the region to show their love for their community.
The Love My Community campaign is about how small acts of kindness and caring can play a big role in the mental health and well being of our region.
“It really is fundamental to people’s health. It’s really important for health and happiness and longevity,” said Justine Foster, who is a healthy living facilitator with public health. “It’s just as important as being physically active or eating healthy.”
The campaign is based on an idea that was started by a group of students in Dominion City. The students from Roseau Valley School showed that things as simple as a kind message in sidewalk chalk or a card to a senior can make a huge difference in someone’s day including their own.
“Their idea was to spread kindness and create joy and really try to build relationships with their community and really connect the school with the community,” said Foster. “We thought it was such a brilliant idea … and their concept was really just to carry out a mental health activity of the class’s choosing … and they had really great success with it.”
Through the healthy living team, there is a Healthy Together Now program that can provide grants to funding these kinds of initiatives.
Last year, the challenge was put out to schools across the region, and it had 19 entries, whether it was physical activity, creative expression through art, connecting with nature or different kinds of social connection opportunities.
“So we thought why don’t try to spread this throughout our whole health region,” said Foster. “We wanted to spread this to our community organizations as well.
“What we’re hoping to do is create some sort of an e-book, and maybe we’ll get some printed versions as well, to showcase the spread of kindness and joy and social connection and the ripple effect it can have throughout the health region. It could be inspiring to see what people come up with,” she concluded.
People are being encourage to take action between now and May 12, and you can go online to southernhealth.ca to find out how to participate and submit an entry form and photos.
