Especially now, as we emerge from a year of COVID isolation, many people feel like they are lacking companionship. Three in five working Americans regard themselves as lonely, according to a 2019 Cigna survey – up 19% from the previous year. Surprisingly, 18- to 22-year-olds had the highest average loneliness score. And this was before the pandemic.

Many countries, cities, and civic groups have already launched innovative projects to reduce loneliness. Shareable has reported some of them. While these are necessary and promising community measures, social isolation is also an individual challenge.

In a mere nine years, one-fourth of the U. S. population will be over 65. Loneliness could become an even greater problem. We need conversation, support, and – most important – the life-enhancing energy that comes from interacting with others.

Ironically, I’ve learned how to combat loneliness from its most likely victims: women in their 90s and 100s.

My old ladies

I call them “my old ladies,” the way a man might refer to a wife or girlfriend who’s there for him.  My old ladies — some still alive, others now only in my heart and head – are “there” for me, too.  They guide me through territory that none of us is eager to explore. (And no, they don’t mind being called “old”!)

I never set out to collect old ladies. In fact, befriending someone 25 years older was the last thing on my mind when I walked into in a fiction-writing class in 1993. Scanning the faces of my fellow students, I thought, Damn! a room full of old people.

I was 50. My classmates were G. I. Generation (1901–1927) retirees. One of them, Henrietta, was 75. She walked with a cane, wore coke-bottle glasses, and held her manuscript an inch from her nose when she read aloud. Widowed at 48, she lived alone but kept herself busy by attending classes and writing stories.

We often had coffee after class; sometimes, she invited me home. I peppered her with questions, curious to learn where her energy and courage came from. When I moved from Manhattan to Massachusetts, we exchanged long letters until she died at 99.

Henrietta was my first but not my last. Each of my old ladies, in her own unique way, is fully engaged with life. They are gifted connectors, who understand the importance of forging and maintaining meaningful connections.

Why old people often “know better”

Marge, now 103, is the belle of our building in New York. On a sunny day, you’ll find her on the roof, talking to fellow residents about politics or finance. She reads several newspapers and still handles her own investments. I once asked if could interview her for a piece about “the oldest living stock trader in New York.”

“Sure,” she said, “but I don’t trade stocks. I invest.”

Anyone, at any age, can become lonely, even Marge, who recently told me, “Of course I get lonely…Everyone I know is dead!” She isn’t being morbid. Her parents, sister, and closest contemporaries are no longer here.

“Acute” loneliness, the kind Marge sometimes experiences, can be triggered by a transition or changed circumstances – a first child, a new boss, retirement, the death of a loved one. If you pay attention and deal with it, such loneliness passes.

John Cacioppo, the social neuroscientist who literally wrote the book on loneliness (“Loneliness: Human Nature and the Need for Social Connection”), thinks of it “social pain.” Cacioppo maintains that belonging is as basic a need as food. Hunger reminds us that we need to eat. Loneliness reminds us that we need to connect.

Loneliness is only a problem, Cacioppo writes, when it becomes a “persistent, self-enforcing loop of negative thoughts, sensations, and behaviors.” The “chronically lonely” are prone to cycles of suspicion, depression, and self-doubt. They can develop insomnia. Many turn to alcohol or pills. Their immune system weakens, and they are less able to warn off serious illnesses. They have a 26% higher risk of premature death.

The best way of climbing out of loneliness, says Cacioppo, is to – paradoxically – do something for another person. You meet your need to connect but you’re not operating totally out of self-interest.

This makes sense. Decades of research confirm that giving benefits the receiver and the giver. It also could explain why my old ladies know how to deal with loneliness.

As children, they were neither pampered nor protected. Much was expected of them. They lived through the Depression and two World Wars – eras that required sacrifice and service. And now in their dotage, it feels both natural and gratifying to give back, to do for others. They draw attention to themselves, but only in service of companionship, not compliments – a refreshing and rare phenomenon in the era of Instagram.

Aging also tends to reduce the frequency and intensity of negative emotions. My old ladies know what they’ve already lived through and handled. They’ve gotten this far. They’re less likely to let a bout of loneliness get them down.

The old lady credo

My old ladies are admittedly a hand-picked group – women I was drawn to because of their energy and engagement with life. They don’t represent all old people, of course – just the lucky ones, who still have sharp minds, determination, and the inclination to connect. Each is a power of example reminding us how to live and satisfy our social appetite at any age.

1. Take care of yourself

“Sit, sit!” commands Marge when I offer to answer her door. She has no problem asking for help when she needs it, but her first choice is to do it herself.

Marge has regular check-ups and a personal trainer who visits twice a week. She subscribes to five health newsletters. She plans her menus and shops for groceries by phone. When she doesn’t order in, she cooks. Her housekeeper does the heavy cleaning, but in a pinch Marge can change sheets and clean toilets, too. The last thing she wants is to be dependent.

She has the right idea: When you feel like you’re in charge of your own life, you have choices. Loneliness might wash over you – for Marge it happens when she thinks about her dear friend Lil. But when you’re competent and resourceful, you can do something to alleviate the sense of loss. “I get busy,” she says, “What else is there to do?”

No surprise, taking care of yourself is key to aging well.

2. Find your social sweet spot

Sylvia was a social butterfly who died a few days short of her 98^th birthday. She had hundreds of admirers. We had to get in line to make a lunch date.

You might cringe at the thought of having a calendar like Sylvia’s, and that’s okay. It’s engagement that matters, not numbers. You must figure out what feels comfortable – and safe – for you.

Genes and environment determine our social appetites. For clues about your capacity for schmoozing, look the relationship patterns in your family. Were your parents loners or party-people? Ponder your own past as well. Have you always had a large circle or a few select acquaintances? What kind of social situations feel most comfortable? When we feel safe, we relax.  We make better choices and are more likely to behave in ways that attract others.

3. Be good company

My old ladies don’t allow themselves to wallow in negativity. They read, take courses, develop new hobbies and interests late in life, and know what’s happening in the world. As a result, they draw people to them. You do not feel like you’re talking to an “old” person. Though some have problems, they don’t complain. They share happy memories, tell stories of travel and triumphs, of work they enjoyed and serendipitous encounters. They might mention their health but only the good news. Most important, they ask about you.

4. Don’t be afraid of strangers

When Zelda was in her mid-90s, still taking three-mile walks near the ocean, she stopped a stranger: “Hi, I’m Zelda. I think I’ve seen you on this path before. My children are worried about

me being alone in case anything happens. Would you mind if we walked together?” Zelda described the woman as “my latest conquest.” She regularly “picked up” strangers (including me). Indeed, when Zelda later read “Consequential Strangers” – my book about the importance of acquaintances outside of family and close friends – the concept immediately resonated with her. “When you’re my age, honey, you have to replenish.”

Zelda seemed to have a gift for picking people who were like her: upbeat and interesting. She wisely stayed away from complainers and “sad sacks,” as she called them. Negativity is infectious. Having one lonely friend, Cacioppo’s research suggests, raises your chance of loneliness by 40 to 65 percent.

5. Reach across the generations

Much older acquaintances allow us to understand aging rather than avert our eyes. Younger ones keep us current and energized. Both have something to give and can sometimes improve your close relationships as well. A much younger acquaintance might make you realize you’re not giving your own child as much credit as he deserves. A wise, level-headed elder might encourage you to take to second look at the mother or father you normally tune out.

6. Lighten up – and laugh

Marge is witty; she has that New York edge. Asked the secret of aging well, she jokes, “I keep breathing!” Holding on to her Rollator for balance as we walk down Park Avenue, she says, “I still see through the eyes of a 25-year-old, but my body feels like I’m 110!”

In contrast, Zelda, who almost made it to 105, had Borsch-Belt “shtick” – a repertoire of songs, poems, and dirty jokes she trotted out at dinner parties and performed at her 100^th birthday celebration. She even took her show on the road, making appearances at local senior centers.

A sense of humor might not guarantee a long life, but it certainly improves the now. Different as Marge and Zelda are, they both laugh easily and make you laugh. Their joy is infectious. They leave you wanting more.

7. Be generous

Many of my old ladies give to charity, tip well, and buy gifts of appreciation for people they care about. Just as important, they often “spend” time and energy on others. It is emotionally generous to remember someone’s name, say thank you, send a note, pay attention, listen, give advice, and offer help. Such kindnesses make a lasting impact on the giver as well as the recipient. As one young woman wrote on Sylvia’s still-active Facebook page: “She had her own kids and grandkids and great-grandkids nearby. But it never, ever kept her from investing time and energy in me.”

8. Be grateful for the little things – and hold onto them

We sometimes think we need to make big changes to feel less lonely. Surprisingly, small steps can make a difference. A smile, a hello, a phone call, a moment’s worth of attention means everything to my old ladies. They pay attention to simple pleasures that are readily available and often right before their eyes. They take nothing for granted; every day is a gift.

Gratitude is a key component of happiness. And happy people rarely feel lonely. A few months before she died, Zelda called me: “Honey, I just realized something, and I think you’ll like it.” She knew how much I cherished her insights about ageing. “The first part of your life is for making memories, and the next part is for remembering. That’s where I am now. And I’m so grateful for the memories I get to relive.”

9. Don’t ruminate; move on

S##t happens. And when it does, you have two choices: deal with it – or sink into despair.

My old ladies don’t wonder “why” their lives have taken a particular course. As Marge once remarked, “I don’t analyze the past. That wouldn’t change anything!”

Lois, my old lady in Paris, turned 90 this year. She’s a little slower and can’t take the long walks she once loved. But she still walks, just shorter distances. She still sees people. And when she can’t, she still goes to the movies on her own. “When there’s nothing you can do about it, accept, and move on.”

10. Make your own happiness

Zelda lived on her own until 103, when a medical scare – and her adult children – convinced her she’d be better off in assisted living. For the first time in over a decade of knowing her, I heard loneliness and anger in her voice. She had lost her independence. “They” assumed that exercising twice a week was enough for her. Worst of all, she was “stuck” with “a bunch of old people.”

Three months later, the old Zelda returned. “I spoke up. I convinced them to give me more physical therapy,” she explained, “and now I’m putting on shows for the other residents. They’re not so bad. I’ve found a few I like.”

Diana, the 97 year-old mother of a college friend, broke her ankle in nine places while doing yoga.   When she returned from the hospital, her best friend, Gert, 99 at the time, was worried:

“Diana, how can you stand being in a wheelchair? You’ve always been so active – golf, tennis, running around…”

“Gert,” Diana interrupted, “You make your own happiness.”

This story continues Shareable’s series on community solutions to social isolation. Check out more stories from the series:

• Bridging Ages’ Life Stories Project connects seniors and teens
• How 186 seniors building an exhibit on social isolation also built a community
• Download our free ebook on social isolation here

The post 10 surprising lessons in loneliness from the most unlikely teachers appeared first on Shareable.

Intergenerational connections are getting more difficult in Western cultures, where seniors live independently or are segregated in retirement communities and teenagers have few interactions with seniors.  

U.K. nonprofit Bridging Ages has developed the Life Stories Project, in which teenagers interview seniors about their lives and then write books based on the interviews. The project has been so successful that Bridging Ages moved it to an online platform, so people worldwide can participate. Life Stories’ online toolbox includes bespoke software that enables participants to upload their story and have it sent to be professionally printed and bound.  

While the books serve as a record of elders’ lives, the connections between youth and older participants are the real purpose of the project, giving a structure that makes young people more likely to interact with seniors outside their social circle. “Through the project, each becomes a part of the other’s life story. The bonds built between the generations, in turn, strengthen their communities,” said director Hannah Fincham. 

Intergenerational bonds can reduce stigma, which is one cause of social isolation. The National Centre for the Protection of Elder People in the U.K. says “negative perceptions of older people can result in social exclusion, isolation and ultimately the abuse of older people.”  

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Download our free ebook on the social isolation here.

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“What he learned from that is that it’s so easy to turn someone bad given a certain context or situation,” says Marie Applegate-Swanson, the creative director of the Village Artist Corner at San Francisco’s Asian Art Museum. “He then decided to pivot and look at the other side of that — how can you make it easy for someone to be good or pro-social in a situation?”

Zimbardo founded the Heroic Imagination Project, a nonprofit that aims to inspire heroism in everyday situations. The work inspired Applegate-Swanson, who had previously collaborated with Zimbardo, in conceiving the upcoming project for the Village Artist Corner, an outdoor extension of the museum.

The Corner, which features a new mural every season, unveiled its latest creation, painted by San Francisco-based artist Alice Lee, this July, focusing on the theme, “Together Let’s Be ____.” From July through December, each month will offer a new word to fill in the blank, each embodying a “heroic skill”: courageous for July, followed eventually by patient, strong, determined, wise, and generous. The two-sided mural is also interactive, inspiring visitors into a call to action for each skill.

“There are six colors represented in that mural, and each of those six colors tie to each of the new heroic skills that we’re going to feature each month,” Applegate-Swanson says. “The idea is for people to have a moment with what it means to be courageous and to write down or draw on a color-coded sticker how they imagine using that skill in an everyday situation and then to adhere it to the mural.”

The interactive nature of the mural project is one result of the museum’s recent push for more meaningful public engagement and community building. “In mid-2015, the museum was having parallel conversations inside about how to be a better neighbor to our civic center communities, how to connect locally with the residents that live in the neighborhood and the people who work here, none of whom we were seeing reflected in our audiences who were coming into the building,” says Allison Wyckoff, the museum’s associate director of public and community programs.

The Village Artist Corner, launched in 2016,  became the answer. Breaking down the walls of the museum and offering a space within the surrounding neighborhood itself shattered certain unwelcoming stereotypes about “what is a museum, what is art, and who are the typical people attending museums,” Applegate-Swanson says.

Most of all, the space is meant to serve as an inviting area for community participation. Each season’s mural project is accompanied by “activations” — additional pop-up installations and activities occurring every first Sunday to provide further interactivity with the theme. Each mural has also included museum-appointed “stewards,” formerly incarcerated individuals — coming from Hunters Point Family, a local community-based organization — who are situated next to the mural seven hours a day, seven days a week to interact with and inform visitors about the mural project.

In some two years since the Village Artist Corner was first unveiled, the result has been overwhelmingly successful, particularly in facilitating connections across all backgrounds in what Applegate-Swanson calls the “petri dish” of diversity within the surrounding Civic Center area. “People want to engage with each other,” Applegate-Swanson says. “They want a reason to stop and talk to each other. It’s really as simple as that.”

This project, though, encourages an audience to be not only in conversation, but perhaps inspired to action. As the mural fills up with visitors’ handwritten notes, the messages might serve as reminders toward daily heroism — not only individually, but also as a community. “I hope that it connects people in a deeper and more meaningful way, that it provides a space for people to come together and learn more about each other and our commonalities, things that unite us rather than divide us, even though on the surface it might seem like we’re very different,” Wyckoff says.

The power of that potential is especially resonant in a time of deep fissures across the country, Applegate-Swanson says. “Having a real-person interaction can remind us of being more empathetic and that we’re all human beings just trying to do this,” she says, “and we should try to do this together.”

On Sunday, July 7, the Village Artist Corner officially unveiled the latest mural with its first monthly “activation.” As the nearby Fulton Street block party — a gathering of food stands and activities every first Sunday of the month — coincided with the opening, a diverse collection of passerby at Civic Center stopped by the Village Artist Corner and interacted with Lee’s artwork.

Visitors were given chalk to draw and write on one side of the mural, while on the other half of Lee’s double-sided creation they engaged with a call for courage. On orange sticky notes, people wrote down their hopes for how to engage with courage in their personal lives, before adhering their messages to the swathes of orange in the six-colored mural. Some notes were more playful — “tying my shoe” read one. Others proposed deeper challenges: one note hoped for sobriety, and another wrote of “coming out” to parents.

Each participant was given an orange button, emblazoned with the word “courageous,” that served as a reminder. For individuals who eventually return to the Village Artist Corner in the future, the mural will offer gold star stickers to place next to their notes if they ultimately achieved their form of courage. Applegate-Swanson hopes that over the coming months, not only will the mural be filled with a rainbow of personal notes, but it will also shine with these gold stars — a reflection of a community actively bettering itself in small ways.

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Download our free ebook on the social isolation here.

The post The Village Artist Corner in San Francisco promotes community building and public engagement appeared first on Shareable.

The night featured a series of mic-drop moments from panelists, such as “technology is [like] a knife – you can use it to cut an avocado or a finger” from the Holistic Underground’s Mazin Mahgoub, and “we have created a belief system that people are disposable… you can delete and swipe and change and shift and move and live in this technological world without really exchanging anything related to the heart” from Professor Vivian Chavez of SFSU.

But it was experience designer Marie Applegate, from the SF Asian Art Museum and Compassion Project, who shared this evocative definition of loneliness — when you want to connect with someone about something, a feeling or emotion, even music, and don’t have somebody to connect with on it.

This event was the in-person component of Shareable’s new “participatory magazine” series. We spent three months focusing on proven and promising solutions to the global epidemic of loneliness and social isolation.

Now, we’re excited to have compiled all of our reporting in a new free ebook, “Community Solutions to the Loneliness Epidemic.”

“Community Solutions to the Loneliness Epidemic” is divided into four sections offering a global context before exploring what people, organizations, and governments are doing to address this challenge in the U.S., U.K., Japan, South Korea, and more. Stories range from an op-ed calling for a change in the social climate to get climate change to solutions-focused pieces about time banking, libraries of things, senior centers, coworking, meal sharing, and innovative city policies.

Shareable will continue publishing about this issue. From what we’ve learned so far, we see two choices — either restructure life for more community in the 21st century through a variety of supportive institutions or continue down our current path towards more loneliness and division. We’ve seen that loneliness and social isolation can be successfully countered by more and better civic engagement, workplace solidarity, and social connections. We can tackle this challenge. The only question is, will we? As always, the choice is ours.

Please download your free copy now and let us know what you think in comments below or send us an email at info@shareable.net. We also welcome donations to help us continue our reporting and convene work on people-powered solutions for the common good.

The post Get Shareable’s free ebook: “Community Solutions to the Loneliness Epidemic” appeared first on Shareable.

Having a home that is walkable to amenities like parks and grocery stores is important to many Americans for convenience and quality of life. According to new research from the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), it’s also a key factor in controlling loneliness and social isolation. AEI researchers Dan Cox and Ryan Streeter have concluded that Americans who live in amenity-rich neighborhoods are more connected to their community, friendlier towards their neighbors, and more social. This is true, the report states, regardless of a person’s social class, gender, or race, and is consistent in both rural and urban settings. AEI is widely known to be a conservative organization and usually advocates for smaller government and cuts to social programs, so a report of this nature coming from this institute is particularly notable.

The survey that AEI used to compile the report was designed to gauge not only the availability of a wide variety of amenities like parks, restaurants and grocery stores, but also how accessible these amenities are. While most Americans report that they are fairly close (within a 15-minute drive) to their favorite grocery store, only 13% of respondents were within walking distance. Only 10% of Americans say that they can walk to their favorite bar or coffee shop, while 6% report being able to walk to an entertainment venue like a movie theater.

It is clear from the data that many Americans have to drive in order to reach the amenities that will help them feel most connected, but in order to have a complete picture, the researchers also developed an Amenity Index that brings together six different measures of neighborhood amenities into one scale between six and 30. This can then be broken down into five categories ranging from ‘very low’ to ‘very high’ amenity. Only 23% of respondents live in high amenity or very high amenity neighborhoods. Higher amenity neighborhoods have an over-representation of white people and of people who are college educated, and they tend to lean younger, with more than a third of residents under 30.

As AEI’s report illustrates, marginalized Americans like elderly and low-income populations are less likely to have access to the amenities they need to make connections with their neighbors and feel less isolated. In order to create a more equitable (and a more social) America, we will have to start with the places we call home.

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Download our free ebook on the social isolation here.

The post To reduce social isolation, start with place appeared first on Shareable.

The exhibit, which opened in April, grew out of a push by the Santa Cruz Museum of Art and History to raise awareness of the American epidemic of loneliness. More than one in five adults in the U.S. report feeling lonely, isolated, or lacking in companionship. This isolation can have an adverse impact on people’s physical health, especially among elderly people, who are often the hardest hit by social isolation. Lonely adults over 60 have been shown to have a 45% higher risk of death compared to more socially connected peers, and a 59% higher risk of mental and physical decline.

In Santa Cruz County, the problem has become extreme: 36% of surveyed elders in the area reported feeling lonely regularly. With these kinds of numbers in mind, museum leaders decided the best curators would be the experts on the problem: seniors themselves. They put out a call for interested community members and ended up with a committee of nearly 200 local seniors. Along with local nonprofits, volunteers and museum staff, the seniors designed a comprehensive, interactive exhibit called We’re Still Here, which will be on display at the museum until January of 2020.

It turned out that the process of designing the exhibit helped reduce social isolation. For the senior curators and their collaborators, the opportunity to work together to tell real stories of loneliness led to deep connections. “At one of the early [committee] meetings, these women were sitting together, and it came up that they were all recently widowed,” said Ashley Holmes, the museum’s marketing manager. “They became really close, because it was helpful for them to talk to others going through the same thing. One of them actually even did artwork for the exhibit about her experience.”

The exhibit includes artwork and photos by local artists and seniors, interactive activities, and even a dance portion, which all deal with different facets of social isolation among the elderly. Seniors are at a high risk for social isolation because they have usually stopped working and, in the West especially, regularly live alone. Seniors may be less mobile than other members of a community and are often on fixed incomes that don’t allow them to do “fun” activities like going to a restaurant or a movie.

One of the most compelling features in the display is an action wall with cards featuring 45 things people can do to address the problem. Action items range from donating an iPod to translating written materials for monolingual elders. “This can be a really difficult topic,” said Holmes. “It’s a heavy thing. The committee didn’t want people to walk away feeling depressed and disempowered, so they included a way for them to engage.”

Although it opened just over a month ago, the exhibit has already brought enthusiastic feedback from Santa Cruz community members. “Overall, the response has been overwhelmingly positive. People have seemed so touched,” said Holmes. “It is a really powerful exhibit, even if it is emotionally difficult.”

Five local artists collaborated with the seniors to create artwork for the exhibit, including Wes Modes, an audio artist who recorded the seniors’ stories for visitors to hear at the museum. “Working with these engaged and active seniors has been eye-opening,” said Modes. “I felt like I’d met friends from whom I had a lot to learn.”

The Museum plans to host a variety of events related to the exhibit held over the next several months, and information, blog posts and updates on the website for those who can’t make it in person to visit.

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Download our free ebook on the social isolation here.

The post How 186 seniors building an exhibit on social isolation also built a community appeared first on Shareable.

After outlining the challenge, we proposed that community involvement is an accessible, effective solution to loneliness. Then, we offered examples of how communities are coming together all over the world. For example, Japan is connecting youth and seniors and the UK government has created a minister for loneliness. In addition, Libraries of Things bring people together, On the Table hosts shared meals, and the Participatory City Foundation helps people create neighborhood projects.

At this point, you might be wondering where to start to lessen loneliness where you live. The nine articles below offer good starting ideas from hosting a stranger dinner to creating engaging public spaces. While some ideas can be done today, others require a bit more planning. Take a look and let us know what other suggestions you have for building community:

1. How to reinvent the potluck

“Hosting a potluck is a great way to start a neighborhood sharing group. Why a potluck? The potluck is an iconic community gathering experience that symbolically reinforces the idea of sharing, as each guest brings food to share with the group. And anyway, potlucks are fun!”

2. How to host a stranger dinner

“With a little forethought, having a stranger dinner can be a great way to meet some new people, gain some different perspectives, and get people to bring delicious food to your house for free.”

3. How to start a housing co-op

“Co-ops save money by cutting out landlords’ profits, sharing common spaces, lowering operating costs, and receiving public subsidies for affordable housing. Studies show that co-ops provide other benefits, like greater social cohesion and support, reduced crime, increased civic engagement & sustainability, better quality and maintenance of housing, and resident stability.”

4. How to integrate a gift circle into any community

“The Gift Circle, as founded by Alpha Lo and spread by Charles Eisenstein, is a group facilitation format that holds great possibility as a way to match resources with needs, create community and inspire gratitude and generosity. The goals of a Gift Circle are simply to provide a warm, free, and welcoming space for community to gather and share Gifts and Needs, most often while literally sitting in a circle.”

5. How to create engaging public spaces

“The idea behind creating a public space is not just to build a nice-looking addition to a town, but to create a space that people actually use. A plaza with no one in it is just an empty space. Creating a space that successfully engages people is an artform and a science that relies on the input of the community, the testing of ideas, sharp observation and detailed planning.”

6. How to plant a habitat garden at the local level

Jeremy Adam Smith and his “Bees and Butterflies” group “went to the city and asked if [they] could plant a community garden in a strip of dirt available on our neighborhood playground, Noe Courts. To [their] surprise, the city said yes.” This article explains how they created the garden.

7. How to start a neighborhood work group

“Once a month during the warm season, my partner Luan and I report for duty at one of six different neighborhood homes to help build a fence, paint a house, terrace a garden, put in a mosaic path, or what have you—with some eating and chatting thrown in.”

8. How to build a better neighborhood

“Even if we haven’t actually experienced it, most of us have nostalgia for that perfect neighborhood, the one where people know each other, help each other, and hang out together. So what is the one ingredient necessary to create a community vibe on the streets where we actually live? Face-time.”

9. How to start a social street

“There are countless ways strong communities help people lead better lives. In the age of ‘connected loneliness,’ having neighbors to borrow that proverbial cup of sugar from is not only a way to share resources more effectively, but a great way to see the neighbourhood itself transformed into a powerful resource in its own right.”

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This article is part of our special series on social isolation. Download our free ebook on the series here.

Find all of the articles in the social isolation series here:

• How our loneliness hurts us all, and what we can do about it
• How community involvement can counter our loneliness crisis
• Q&A: How civic governance innovation can increase engagement
• How Citizen University is building an army of civic leaders
• Why we need a change in climate
• How the simple act of sharing a meal is creating community change
• Why countries worldwide are watching how the UK’s newest Minister is handling the loneliness crisis
• How Seoul is confronting its deadly isolation epidemic with sharing
• Can we build non-sexist and non-racist cities?
• How sharing can bring Japan’s elderly and youth together
• Why creating community-led project spaces can ease social isolation
• Can an app cure loneliness and isolation?
• Q&A: Steve King on loneliness, the social side of coworking and the future of work
• 10 innovative projects from around the world that reduce loneliness
• How Libraries of Things build resilience, fight climate change, and bring communities together

We held an event on April 10, 2019 about social isolation. Read the event recap and watch the video from the event here.

The post 9 ways to reduce loneliness in your community appeared first on Shareable.

It wasn’t until I moved to Asheville, North Carolina in 2013 that I got excited about Libraries of Things (LoT) and tool libraries specifically. A tool library is just like a regular library, but instead of checking out books, you can check out tools for gardening, plumbing, carpentry, or other projects at low or, in some cases, no cost at all. There are now LoTs all over the world. People are sharing pretty much anything you can imagine. They’re a great example of what we at Shareable refer to as the real sharing economy, by which we mean sharing based on principles and platforms that are equitable, not exploitative.

LoTs have become a lot more popular in the past decade, helped by new, affordable LoT software platforms like myTurn and evangelists like Gene Homicki (co-founder and CEO at myTurn). MyTurn has been a sponsor of Shareable for many years, but I first got to know Gene when I co-founded the Asheville Tool Library (ATL) in 2013, almost a year before I started working for Shareable. Like many other LoTs, the ATL benefited from Gene’s support during our startup phase, and while I’m no longer living in Asheville or working at the ATL, they’re still using myTurn today.

We caught up with Gene to learn about the current state of the LoT nation, which includes more than 400 such libraries around the world. Gene shared what he’s learned over the last decade, what myTurn’s treasure trove of data tells us about who is sharing what, and for what purposes, and what’s next for the thing-lending movement.

Tom Llewellyn: Can you talk a little bit about the history and evolution of Libraries of Things?

Gene Homicki: The Library of Things movement started with tool libraries. What is believed to be the first tool library has been in operation since 1943 at the Grosse Point, Michigan Public Library. There were at least a couple dozen tool libraries in the 1970s, but many closed down due to a combination of difficulty operating manually (without technology solutions), the rise of consumer culture, “retail therapy,” and the availability of cheap products often made overseas in places without the same environmental or labor requirements have here in the United States. The need for community and the joy of working with durable, high-quality tools and products didn’t completely go away, but seemed to be forgotten for a while.

By the mid-2000s, only a few of the original tool libraries were still in operation, but they would help inspire a new movement of Libraries of Things, which today is expanding around the world. In 2008-2009, two things combined to inspire this movement. First, the global financial crisis put millions of people out of work, [so] they could not afford to maintain their homes or start new businesses. Second, the rise of cloud-based software development and other consumer technologies that were coming down in cost [made creating LoTs more feasible].

With so many people under- or unemployed during the financial crisis, a shift to affordable access over having to buy everything yourself started to make sense to more and more people. What’s been amazing is that even with the economy being much stronger for many people, the growth and excitement around Libraries of Things is still accelerating.

We’re seeing an increasing number of nonprofits, entrepreneurs, and more recently public libraries getting started with Libraries of Things on myTurn. We now have almost 400 publicly accessible tool, kitchen, kids/baby, audiovisual and electronics, musical instruments, and general Libraries of Things on our platform — with even more schools, government agencies, and enterprises using our platform internally. We have the lowest tech of items on our platform including baby carriers/ slings and 60-year-old hand tools, to the highest tech like drones, robots, and VR headsets.

Speaking of myTurn, tell us what you do and how and why you got started.

MyTurn is a mission-driven enterprise that uses “radical reuse” and sharing to increase affordable access to products — while reducing consumption and waste from those very same resources.

Specifically, we offer a cloud-based platform to help organizations track, rent, and share tools, equipment, or any durable resource. In cities and communities, our platform is being used to create subscription-based access to products. Educational institutions are using our platform to manage bike lending and equipment sharing both on campus and between campuses. Enterprises use the myTurn platform to increase utilization of equipment internally while turning excess capacity into revenue.

Durable and repairable products managed with myTurn are typically used one thousand to ten thousand percent (10 to 100 times more) compared to individual ownership. Reusing and sharing products, rather than purchasing them new, can reduce GHG emissions by up to 99% according to a recent report from the U.N. Resource Panel.

In 2009-2010, looking for practical ways to use my background in tech to help solve both the economic crisis and our serious environmental and climate challenges, I co-founded the West Seattle Tool Library. Having the inventory easily viewable online was a key driver of the rapid growth of the tool library, as it allowed community members to see and get excited about the hundreds and eventually thousands of tools they could borrow.

Our initial plan was to help get many of the items gathering dust in people’s garages, closets, and attics into productive use. However, two interesting things happened along the way. First, rather than just helping people reuse resources, we found that tool libraries and Libraries of Things are also great at building community. Second, while many people and families have a ton of stuff in storage… businesses, universities, and cities have even more underutilized equipment locked away in storerooms, yards, and even warehouses.

With the amazing positive impact we saw, we took the next step to scale both impact and the business by incorporating myTurn.com as a legal for-profit, mission-driven public benefit corporation (pbc, or legal B-corporation) in 2013. Incorporating as a pbc has allowed us to scale while ensuring our environmental and social missions remain a part of our corporate DNA.

We’ve seen a lot of online “stuff sharing” platforms come and go. LoTs are a great example of how replication (rather than scale) can improve the resilience of a service. What other differences have allowed LoTs to be so successful?

Just about every time we introduce someone to the idea of a Library of Things, their first response is: “That makes so much sense, why don’t I have one locally?”

There are a few main reasons why Libraries of Things work so well and make sense. First, they provide a safe and reliable place to pick up and drop off items. There is no need to arrange two exchanges with someone you probably don’t know. Second, most accept donations of products, which increases the sense of ownership by participants and simultaneously bring supply and demand online at the same time. And most importantly, they provide place-based services that create more vibrant communities.

Most people are familiar with libraries and also with rental shops, so Libraries of Things have the advantage of being both innovative yet familiar at the same time.

Shareable is just wrapping up an extended series on the global loneliness epidemic. How are these new libraries contributing to solutions? 

One of the great things about Libraries of Things and tool libraries is that they bring people together. We’ve seen them be a great intergenerational gathering point where typically older people with woodworking, metalworking, and repair skills can share those skills with younger generations. This has been made evident in the popularity of repair cafés and events at tool libraries.

Repair cafés and fixer events bring people together to fix items. In Seattle, we’d see the same people coming back, building relationships, and working on other projects like community gardens together. Many people describe the other people they work with, volunteer with, and meet at Libraries of Things as “family,” and I know that is true for many of the people I started the West Seattle Tool Library with.

The growing numbers of LoTs clearly shows there’s a demand for these services, but what are the actual numbers?

For Libraries of Things, there are over a quarter million items available, and our current pace is approaching a million loans per year. We’re starting to bring on networks of organizations starting Libraries of Things, as well as public library systems, so the number of items and transactions is rapidly accelerating.

The frequency of use of items varies greatly based on the type and durability of the item, membership size, and the location of the library. We have items that have been used more than 300 times by more than 200 different people. Since some of our oldest customers run tool libraries, many of the products that have seen the most reuse on our platform so far have been power tools; however, we now see other types of higher quality items starting to catch up. Some examples of “radical reuse” from Libraries of Things on our platform include a DeWalt table saw that has been loaned out 321 times to 211 different people, a Hitachi compound miter saw, that has been loaned 252 times to 167 people, and tents and camping sleeping pads that spent over 250 days in use in the last year.

There are also multiple items that have been on loan 350+ days per year at the NE Seattle Tool Library.  When I first saw those stats, I guessed they were items that they had been checked out for months at a time, but in most cases, the items had an average loan length of under 7 days, meaning they were being loaned out almost every week of the year.

According to soon-to-be-published research, most people borrow items from Libraries of Things at least six to ten times per year, with the most prolific users borrowing 50 or more items. The number and variety of items available, how convenient the hours and locations are, and the demographics of an area all play a role in utilization.

One of the lesser known aspects of tool libraries, and this is something that attracted our group in Asheville, is the support they can offer to first time entrepreneurs. What are some success stories from your customer base?

Increases in entrepreneurship, economic development, and social innovation are happening both through the use of products available from tool libraries and Libraries of Things, and also in creating new circular- and sharing-economy businesses.

From the start, in Seattle, one of our members who lost her job during the financial crisis was able to use tools from the tool library to help her start an urban farm, which she was then able to expand into a multi-acre farm outside of Seattle. The Station North Tool Library ran a pilot program called the “Surface Project” that worked with individuals with high barriers to employment to help them learn marketable skills. They provided the tools and training to help these individuals create value-added products from reclaimed local materials.

While many Libraries of Things are nonprofit, we’re working with a dozen teams in multiple countries to build out new business models that offer products like kids’ toys, clothing, and even art, on a membership or subscription basis rather than purchasing them new. Interestingly, a number of tool libraries that started in the 1970s also started to help act as urban revitalization and job creation programs. What is old is new again.

With climate-fueled disasters on the rise around the world, what role can tool libraries play in aiding community-led disaster response efforts?

Tool libraries can play a huge role in climate resilience and helping communities bounce forward after a disaster, but to be most effective they need to be in place before disasters like super-storms, floods, wildfires, or earthquakes.

The tools, skills, and community that support a tool library can all be essential ingredients for rapid response and rebuilding. As we’ve seen after recent disasters, it can take weeks — or even months — for effective outside assistance to arrive, so the better-equipped communities are to help themselves, the better they will do after a disaster. Even if a tool library itself is damaged in a disaster, a redundant and reliable platform like myTurn can help locate the tools that were checked out at the time of the disaster or items from other nearby tool libraries, so they can be put back into service quickly.

Even before a disaster happens, tool libraries can play a number of roles in disaster preparation. Some of the most popular tools at the Phinney Tool Library like concrete drills, palm nailers, air compressors, reciprocating saws are often borrowed to be used for earthquake retrofits, and the Oakland Tool Library even has earthquake retrofit kits. The social cohesion that tool libraries fosters also helps build community resilience.

One final important, and often overlooked, benefit of tool libraries, Libraries of Things, and other product sharing services is the large role they can play in reducing GHGs and climate risk in the first place. According to recent research by groups in Europe and the C40 Cities, consumer product consumption is the sector of the economy that has one of the, if not the, biggest environmental impact when taking into account resource extraction, manufacturing, and global supply chains, transportation, storage, use, and eventual disposal of products.

Beyond reducing the “embodied” energy in products through reuse, some organizations are using tool libraries to further advance energy efficiency. For example, the Smart Buildings Center, SDG&E, and CUNY Building Performance Lab all run energy efficiency tool libraries that help homeowners, professionals, and construction companies retrofit existing buildings to reduce their energy use. Using shared tools to reduce energy consumption is a win-win for people, economics, and the planet.

How can people start a library of things in their own community?

People and communities can, of course, contact us directly here at myTurn.com. We’ve directly helped over 100 programs get started. We also connect people to other resources, such as those on the Sharable.net website or to other groups in their region — we support libraries in more than 15 countries — that can provide practical advice to help them get going in their locality. MyTurn aims to develop online training resources with our partners to help even more Libraries of Things get going.

We have a page that links to a number of these and other resources to help people get started. Resources linked from that site will also help provide ideas on overcoming some of the challenges of getting started like finding a space, obtaining startup funds, and finding a supportive community to help guide you through the startup process.

What’s coming next? What role are LoTs going to play in urban society in 5 years?

We see the movement accelerating over the next 5 to 10 years. We’re going to see new, more convenient, ways to get products from Libraries of Things. This will include self-service kiosks, as well as, pickup and delivery options. For example, we’re currently working with the Edinburgh Tool Library and i-PuK on a pilot program called EasySharing that will allow people in underserved areas of Edinburgh to reserve items online and pick them up locally in their neighborhood.

Libraries of Things are both starting to expand to multiple locations, and also connecting with other similar or complementary organizations to form local and regional networks. For example, our partner SmartUse.global in Norway is building out a props sharing network for theater arts related organizations in the Oslo region.

Want to borrow camping gear or a stand up paddle board? Your employer might provide a Library of Things as a new perk in the future. While we only know of a handful, organizations are starting to see the advantages of reducing consumption and the increased health benefits of making it easier for their employees to be active by providing them with shared sporting goods.

While high rents are forcing people into smaller spaces, amenities are on the rise. We see more buildings, developments, and whole neighborhoods being designed around sharing and including Libraries of Things right from the start. Here at myTurn, we’re working to ensure that anywhere you live, work, or travel, you’ll be able to access the products you want and need rather than having to purchase them new.

Any last nuggets of advice?

Don’t reinvent the wheel when you can partner. Part of why we released the myTurn platform was to remove one of the biggest barriers to starting and managing a Library of Things. We continue to work with new customers to modify and improve the system, such as [adding] the ability to translate myTurn into new languages. Recently, we opened up advanced APIs to support electronic locks and self-service Kiosks with partners like The Thingery and London Library of Things. And we’re excited to be working on GIS, cross-organizational search functions, and expanding our network further across Europe with SmartUse.global.

Along the same vein, if you’re looking to create a community resource, we recommend people first attempt to partner with an existing organization. Public libraries — originators of the “real” sharing economy — are increasingly offering Libraries of Things. For example, the Sacramento Public Library, among others, are offering full Libraries of Things and many more are [offering] at least smaller special collections. If a public library is reluctant to offer additional items, please feel free to put them in contact with us and we can connect them with other public libraries that lend everything from tools to telescopes.

myTurn is a partner and in kind sponsor of Shareable. This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity. Still have unanswered questions? Leave a comment below and we’ll do our best to point you in the right direction.

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This article is part of our special series on social isolation. Download our free ebook on the series here.

Find all of the articles in the social isolation series here:

• How our loneliness hurts us all, and what we can do about it
• How community involvement can counter our loneliness crisis
• Q&A: How civic governance innovation can increase engagement
• How Citizen University is building an army of civic leaders
• Why we need a change in climate
• How the simple act of sharing a meal is creating community change
• Why countries worldwide are watching how the UK’s newest Minister is handling the loneliness crisis
• How Seoul is confronting its deadly isolation epidemic with sharing
• Can we build non-sexist and non-racist cities?
• How sharing can bring Japan’s elderly and youth together
• Why creating community-led project spaces can ease social isolation
• Can an app cure loneliness and isolation?
• Q&A: Steve King on loneliness, the social side of coworking and the future of work
• 10 innovative projects from around the world that reduce loneliness

We held an event on April 10, 2019 about social isolation. Read the event recap and watch the video from the event here.

The post How Libraries of Things build resilience, fight climate change, and bring communities together appeared first on Shareable.

Shareable’s executive director, Neal Gorenflo, kicked off the evening by explaining why this is a critically important topic. “We wanted to tackle loneliness because it’s now an epidemic in the U.S. and in other developed countries like the U.K., Japan, South Korea,” Gorenflo said in his opening remarks. “Today, the average American has only one confidant,” he continued. “That’s down from three in 1985.”

For the last month, Shareable has been publishing a series on social isolation. We’ve outlined the problem, not only in America but also in South Korea, the United Kingdom, and Japan; we’ve explored possible solutions such as those offered by Citizen University, or the Ying app; we’ve also offered different points of view on how we can ease the problem of social isolation with op-ed pieces by Monée Fields-White and Marvin Brown.

This is an issue that needs to be addressed. “Loneliness doesn’t just create a collection of sick individuals,” Gorenflo said. “It also creates a sick society. It weakens our social fabric.” The goal of this event was to catalyze action. “Tonight is about what each of us can do to solve [loneliness] in our communities,” said Gorenflo.

Gorenflo’s short introduction was followed by a panel discussion moderated by event co-host Kenn Burrows of SFSU’s Holistic Health Institute. Burrows kicked off the panel by stating that governments and corporations are not solving critical social problems like loneliness. He followed this by asking each panelists what brought them to the topic.

The panel featured Terry Collins, freelance journalist and author of the lead feature story in our series; Carla Perissinotto, M.D., associate professor, Geriatrics Division, University of California San Francisco; Vivian Chavez, Dr.P.H., M.P.H., associate professor, Department of Health Education, SFSU; Marie Applegate, experience designer, Creative Compassion Initiative and Asian Art Museum; and Mazin Mahgoub, founder & executive director, Holistic Underground.

Perissinotto has been researching social isolation and loneliness among older adults. She explores how seniors stay independent and what drives themt nursing homes. “Once you start doing clinical work,” she said, “the things that are described as social problems, leave the realm of physicians. And that was deeply troubling to me. So I dove into some research.”

Chavez spoke about community-based research and it’s advantages over theory. Her research  examines the root causes of a sick society. “This global phenomenon of loneliness and social isolation completely makes sense in a fast-food nation,” she said. “We have created a belief system that people are disposable. Literally, you can delete and swipe and change and shift and move and live in this technological world without really exchanging anything related to the heart.”

“Technology is [like] a knife,” Mahgoub added. “You can use it to cut an avocado or a finger, it’s all about how you use it. What are the underlying values of our culture that are driving us?” he asked. “And how can we base our cultures on values that make belonging and maybe even a sense of purpose right at the center of our culture?”

The panelists discussed how you know you belong, what loneliness looks like, and how understanding our values is critical to how we fit into society. Please watch the full introduction and panel.

After the panel, participants broke into small groups to discuss various facets of the topic in more detail. Chavez lead a group on  the sound of loneliness, Adam Poswolsky hosted a session on Friendship in the Digital Age, and Katrina Zavalney explored reducing social isolation through chance encounters and neighborhood engagement, to name a few.

At the end of the evening, the entire group gathered one last time for a wrap up. Gorenflo invited participants to share what they learned in the breakout sessions. He also asked participants if they were considering actions to reduce loneliness in their lives and communities. Some people mentioned projects they wanted to start such as an “Everybody Wednesday” potluck and open mic event, a soup and story night, and a revival of Messy. Shareable plans to stay in touch with participants to see what actions they take as the main purpose of Shareable’s 2019 event series is to catalyze action.

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This article is part of our special series on social isolation. Download our free ebook on the series here.

Find all of the articles in the social isolation series here:

• How our loneliness hurts us all, and what we can do about it
• How community involvement can counter our loneliness crisis
• Q&A: How civic governance innovation can increase engagement
• How Citizen University is building an army of civic leaders
• Why we need a change in climate
• How the simple act of sharing a meal is creating community change
• Why countries worldwide are watching how the UK’s newest Minister is handling the loneliness crisis
• How Seoul is confronting its deadly isolation epidemic with sharing
• Can we build non-sexist and non-racist cities?
• How sharing can bring Japan’s elderly and youth together
• Why creating community-led project spaces can ease social isolation
• Can an app cure loneliness and isolation?
• Q&A: Steve King on loneliness, the social side of coworking and the future of work
• 10 innovative projects from around the world that reduce loneliness
• How Libraries of Things build resilience, fight climate change, and bring communities together

The post Event recap: Exploring community solutions to the loneliness epidemic appeared first on Shareable.

It doesn’t help that many people suffer from a lack of close relationships. In May 2018, Cigna’s U.S. Loneliness Index found that loneliness has become an epidemic. Nearly half of 20,000 Americans surveyed said that they are “sometimes or always feeling alone or left out.”

More than three-quarters of participants in a separate study led by Dr. Dilip Jeste, the director of UC San Diego’s Center for Healthy Aging, reported “moderate to high levels of loneliness.” Jeste describes loneliness as “the discrepancy between the social relationships you want and the social relationships you have.”

Jeste’s team also discovered an inverse relationship between wisdom and loneliness. They measured people across “six components of wisdom” — namely: “general knowledge of life; emotion management; empathy, compassion, altruism and a sense of fairness; insight; acceptance of divergent values; and decisiveness — the ability to make quick, effective decisions when necessary.” People scoring high in wisdom were less lonely.

Some of these “components of wisdom” can be developed or honed by one potential cure for loneliness: Time Banking. Today, mere acquaintances, perfect strangers, neighbors, friends, and family members are using Time Banking in over 38 countries to meet their needs and find a sense of connection and belonging.

Time Banking has helped communities in distress rebuild after earthquakes, cities bounce back from the economic and spirit-crushing devastation of the Great Recession, and individuals overcome personal crises. In big cities like Los Angeles and Philadelphia, people are Time Banking as part of a daily practice of digital detox.

What is Time Banking?

Basically, a group of individuals form a network, called a Time Bank. Members support and help one another within a framework that is bound by a set of agreements. First, each member agrees to offer and provide their skills, talents and experience to others. In return, members can seek helpful skills from other members

Time credits, usually measured in hour-long increments of time, are traded as an alternative currency to traditional money in all Time Banking exchanges. Each member can bank the hours they earn by helping others, and also trade hours in their account as payment to anyone for their help. Unlike barter, which is one-to-one, Time Banking leverages the skills of everyone in the network and can be one-to-many.

How can Time Banking cultivate wisdom and combat loneliness and isolation?

Time Banking encompasses and embodies the six components of wisdom.

Life knowledge: It shines the light on the talent equally distributed across the population. It unlocks the value in each human that is hidden by traditional measures of economic wealth.

Empathy/compassion: Its practice requires an openness to being vulnerable and asking for help (versus allowing anger, resentment or shame get the best of you). It’s always amazing how many people show up for someone who is vulnerable and asks for help.

Altruism and fairness: Members pay acts of kindness forward, by doing something for someone else, and “give back” to others by offering their skills and talents.

Divergent values acceptance: Time Banking also exposes its members to people from all walks of life, creating a sense of appreciation and respect for people across their differences.

Decisiveness: Finally, Time Banking is efficient. You make a request and accept the help when presented, to get things done that need doing.

We’re working toward broad adoption of the concept behind Time Banking and for purposes of scaling we often refer to it as skill-sharing on-demand. Apps (like YING, which I co-founded) can work to make Time Banking easy to understand and do within any group you’re a part of. Our vision is to see the concept of group skill-sharing, adopted in neighborhoods, corporations, and universities across the globe.

What’s next for Time Banking?

I believe the concept of Time Banking will also help democratize how we view and build social capital — a measure of the strength of our interpersonal relationships. We strongly believe embedding the concept of skill-sharing in our culture will raise the level of social capital desperately needing to be increased in our communities to deter isolation and loneliness. Perhaps it can help us build a world where the time invested in your social capital account will be as important as what’s in your bank account.

What you can do today?

Like my mentor, Edgar Cahn, “the father of Time Banking,” my team and I have dedicated our lives to bringing connection to communities locally and globally. Join us in this important work! Download the YING Bank app at the App Store or Google Play (Tip: use the referral code “SHARNG” for fast approval). Go to yingme.co to learn more about us and our upcoming events. We hope to see you in our growing community of people living out of the spirit of human interconnection.

Karla Ballard Williams is a member of Shareable’s advisory board.

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This article is part of our special series on social isolation. Download our free ebook on the series here.

Find all of the articles in the social isolation series here:

• How our loneliness hurts us all, and what we can do about it
• How community involvement can counter our loneliness crisis
• Q&A: How civic governance innovation can increase engagement
• How Citizen University is building an army of civic leaders
• Why we need a change in climate
• How the simple act of sharing a meal is creating community change
• Why countries worldwide are watching how the UK’s newest Minister is handling the loneliness crisis
• How Seoul is confronting its deadly isolation epidemic with sharing
• Can we build non-sexist and non-racist cities?
• How sharing can bring Japan’s elderly and youth together
• Why creating community-led project spaces can ease social isolation
• Q&A: Steve King on loneliness, the social side of coworking and the future of work
• 10 innovative projects from around the world that reduce loneliness
• How Libraries of Things build resilience, fight climate change, and bring communities together

We held an event on April 10, 2019 about social isolation. Read the event recap and watch the video from the event here.

Header image is a screenshot from yingme.co

The post Can an app cure loneliness and isolation? appeared first on Shareable.