Waterford.org’s Post

To all green industry and landscape professionals.

New Episode Drop! 🎙️ ⬇️ When we consider the experiences of our on-campus students, our focus revolves around fostering community, facilitating connections, and aiding in transitions. But do we specifically consider the issue of loneliness?

Remember the joy of playing outside all day with friends? That's a reality for kids in the Niagara Peninsula! 🏞️ As we help families from busy cities find their perfect home here, we often see the magic through the eyes of their children. Here’s why the Niagara Peninsula is perfect for your family, from a kid’s perspective: 🚴 Endless Outdoor Fun: Plenty of parks, trails, and safe streets for biking, hiking, and exploring. Kids here have nature as their playground! 🍎 Fresh Farm Adventures: Visiting local farms to pick fruits, see animals, and understand where their food comes from. It’s educational and fun. 🏫 Great Schools: Top-notch schools with caring teachers mean your kids get a quality education and make lifelong friends. 🎉 Community Events: Festivals, fairs, and community gatherings create a strong sense of belonging. Kids can participate in local sports, arts, and cultural events all year round. When families relocate to Niagara, they're not just buying a house—they're giving their kids an amazing childhood. Thinking about making that move? Let’s chat about how we can find the perfect home for your family. What’s one childhood memory you cherished growing up?

When brands lead education, they can significantly enhance community safety and foster responsibility. Brands have the power to influence and champion initiatives that build safer, more informed communities. https://lnkd.in/gnuyiQSX

Future Generations' mandate isn’t only to educate, lead research, and enact community development. It’s also to build a world-circling network of people responding to global challenges. That network isn’t bound by geography or even a shared end goal. It’s united by a process, a belief that we can best transform our future by lifting up local solutions and sharing best practices. That network begins with Future Generations University. Learn more at future.edu.

Greetings, friends! Over the past 10 months I have been asked dozens of times what is next with my lifelong work of coming alongside community to create healthy, vibrant places. The types of places that we all want for our kids and families. For 25 years I was afforded a tremendous privilege to work alongside my neighbors (who became my closest friends) to create an audacious vision of taking the neighborhood we were living and raising our kids in from a place of chronic private and public disinvestment to one rich in amenities, great public spaces and great schools, all while ensuring that those who had lived there all along were the primary beneficiaries of the work. Fast forward and we, alongside hundreds of families and dozens of partners, had collectively created Tulsa's only inclusively grown neighborhood. Through those 25 years I was constantly drawn to a question: why can't all kids experience this? With the level of resource this country has, why can we not see more communities flourishing? This past Spring, I quietly launched my own organization called Cerca Solutions . "Cerca" is the Spanish word for "close" or "proximate" (though, comically, it is also the word for "fence"). Proximity, in my experience, is one of the key values of getting to more vibrant communities. It helped me to discover that though many of my neighbors were living with a much different set of financial resources than I was, they wanted the exact same things I wanted for my kids - safe, amenity-rich places to play, great community-centered schools, and retail spaces that reflected our needs. The past ten months I have had dozens of conversations and have realized a huge hunger for communities all across the country to get to that state of vibrancy. So, we have begun assembling a team of people with expertise in housing and real estate development, education success, impact measurement, leadership development and beyond in order to help as many communities see their vision become a reality as possible. Additionally, we have big plans to produce content to help drive the dissemination of knowledge and evoke forward thought around comprehensive and inclusive neighborhood development. Stay tuned as we roll this out, but if you or your community are interested in our services, please check out our website at www.cerca.solutions

As we continue to improve the educational experiences and outcomes for our students, the impact of positive, research-based interventions, around family and community engagement often go under utilized. If you are looking for resources in this area, here you go. https://lnkd.in/gkUB_Dya

The call to foster inclusive communities grows louder as more research emerges on the importance of social connection. At IMPACT Parks, we believe that the answer lies right in our neighborhoods. A simple, accessible, and natural remedy to loneliness is creating and maintaining public parks. These green spaces are about providing recreational areas but also fostering social connections and enhancing community well-being. LEARN MORE about the natural solution for enhancing social connections and well-being: https://hubs.ly/Q02B7hBS0

🕍 As the executive director of a synagogue, the weeks leading up to the High Holidays are a whirlwind of logistics, member requests, and last-minute preparations. But what if I told you that this seemingly chaotic time is actually one of the most rewarding parts of my job? In my latest blog post, "Shofar So Good: Embracing the Chaos of High Holiday Prep," I share why those eleventh-hour emails and apologetic phone calls from congregants are not just part of the job – they're a highlight. Discover how these moments of community engagement reflect the true spirit of our congregation and why they're at the heart of what makes the High Holidays so meaningful. Whether you're in nonprofit management, interested in community organizing, or simply curious about the behind-the-scenes of running a religious institution, this post offers a unique perspective on finding joy in the rush.

Schoolyard Connect’s newest feature centers around Family & Community Engagement. Learn how to to improve student outcomes through engagement. Browse all the educator resources at https://bit.ly/3wahxi4 5 Key Family Engagement Strategies for Success >> https://bit.ly/44gVTW0