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LACEY: A COMPASSIONATE COMMUNITY
The "Compassionate Lacey" campaign began through a partnership with our local school district, North Thurston Public Schools, a proud follower of the principles of the International Charter for Compassion. We came together as a greater community to explore how to expand compassion in our community and engage citizens of all ages.
2020-21 Compassionate Community Project: The Spirit of Giving Back
The City and our community partners — North Thurston
School District and Lacey South Sound Chamber —
are excited to announce our 5th annual Compassionate
Community Project, "The Spirit of Giving Back."
After a challenging year, we invite you to join us in
reconnecting with our community. This year's goal is to
encourage individuals and groups to volunteer for projects
or events that support the people and organizations in our
community. You can sign up for an existing opportunity or
create your own – the possibilities are endless.
Throughout the year we will share information on ways you can give back and contribute to
this year's project on our Compassionate Community – Lacey Facebook page.
Before signing on to the Charter for Compassion, we wanted to understand the idea of what it means to be a compassionate community — and to involve our citizens, neighbors, and friends in the discussion. We realized we needed this involvement to help determine what the focus areas of our campaign should be and use this to help inform our campaign goals and objectives.
With the idea of expanding compassion and involving our community in this discussion, we first needed to ask one simple question, "Is Lacey a compassionate community?" The resonating answer was "YES." However, just because compassion exists in our community, doesn't mean there isn't room for more. The next question then became "How can we spread more compassion?"
We wanted to bring members of our community together to create connections, share information, and explore ideas … all surrounding "compassion." In order to have a meaningful conversation, we needed to explore what it means to be compassionate and to take a look at what we're already doing in our community.
Lacey City Council Adopts Compassionate Community Resolution
On May 28, 2015, Lacey City Council adopted a resolution supporting a local campaign for compassion.
Resolution #1023 Supporting a Local Campaign for Compassion
Top 3 Campaign Focus Areas
We held a community forum in early 2016 to celebrate the diverse network of residents, schools, businesses, and organizations that provide the framework of compassion in our community. Through the forum, we discussed how we can celebrate, nourish, and expand the invaluable work being done in the Lacey area.
Through much discussion, we were able to break down and organize the emerging forum themes.
The main campaign focus areas include the three "C's":
Celebrate: Compassion exists in our community and we recognizes this. We feel it is vital to celebrate and recognize current and future compassionate acts to help keep this campaign at the forefront of our minds and actions.
Connect: We need to support conversations in a way that connects our community to continue building the campaign.
Create: We need to keep this movement alive and create an environment that fosters future campaign progress.
With our main campaign focus areas defined, we can set future goals and objectives, while acknowledging they may change with the community and our campaign:
Ongoing Communication: Continued outreach is vital to keep the movement in motion, which includes both outreach to our citizens, and from citizen to citizen.
Community Connection: In order to connect people to take action, we created a Compassion Lacey Facebook page (www.facebook.com/compassionlacey) to acts as a virtual portal for outreach and provide a means for ongoing, public discussions. We hope to continue building this network in the future.
Venue for Recognition: In order to recognize compassionate acts and services in our community, the Lacey City Council will hold quarterly public recognitions during televised Council meetings.
Take the Pledge: To help raise awareness and keep compassion in the forefront of our actions, we encourage citizens, service clubs, and businesses to "Take the Pledge" to be compassionate.
Watch the video "What is Compassion," below. Locally produced with local faces.
If you missed the Compassion is Contagious Community Forum, you can view it below:
Copyright City of Lacey, Washington, USA