Fun for All – for free!
“Never, ever underestimate the importance of having fun,” Randy Pausch.
Like many of you, in January I spend time thinking about my hopes and plans for the new year. While my wish list for the year is long, one thing keeps rising to the top: fun.
It’s been a tough few years. As a community, nation, and world we’ve been through a lot. It’s been stressful, challenging, full of tension and unknowns. Collectively, we’ve experienced the pandemic, and while we’ve been impacted in different ways, we’ve all been impacted. For a while, we could only gather virtually, and feelings of isolation were real with long-term impacts.
In talking to members of the community, we’ve heard time and again that finding affordable, family-friendly activities is a challenge in Hancock County. While the idea of affordable may be different in each of our eyes, I’m reminded of a conversation we had with seniors at 50 North in 2017. We were talking about what “affordable” meant when it came to community activities. Bravely, one of the participants shared attending an event meant deciding between doing laundry that week and attending that event.
The Community Foundation is proud to provide Fun for All, a series of free community events, to help provide affordable, family-friendly activities and have fun. So far, we have events scheduled a few days in each of the first four months of the year. Events include a family movie at the Marathon Center for the Performing Arts, open days at 50 North, open skate at the Cube, Symphony Storytimes, and a free admission day at the Children’s Museum. Much like the free admissions days we offered at public pools throughout Hancock County this past summer, we hope these events will bring folks together to have some fun, for free!
I’d like to thank our nonprofit partners who are helping make this happen. Knowing lack of transportation is a barrier to attending events, we’ve partnered with HATS to provide free transportation to the events as well.
As a community foundation, we can help address the toughest issues facing our community (housing, workforce, transportation, safety, mental health and harmful substance use, etc.) while addressing other ways our community can be even better. If we truly want to live our mission to improve the quality of life for all in the community, we can’t forget that fun is part of quality of life.
Click here to see the full schedule of events and we hope you’ll join us as we offer fun for all!
This editorial was originally printed in The Courier Wednesday, February 1, 2023.
