When you think about what it takes to really feel a part of a community, to value where you live and be fully invested in it, pride and purpose come to mind. When one feels proud of the community they live in and feels a sense of purpose in life, it contributes to...
Hub Happenings in the Canaan / Colebrook / Stratford Region
Previous Events
Coming Together and Gaining Steam
Nearly three years into this community building work, positive momentum is building in our communities, and it’s all from working together. It starts with being observant, knowing the landscape, meeting people where they are at and identifying the gaps. It grows...
Summer 2025, July-August: Big things are happening!
Some big things happened for community building this summer in the North Country, with the progress at the North Country Community Recreation Center and the success of the Firefighter Appreciation Day we helped to plan. But the small things matter too, sometimes more...
Spring 2025- Unleashing Community Power!
Looking back at what took place from late March to the end of June in the Stratford/Colebrook/Canaan area, here are some highlights in community building work that come to mind: The 2nd Ann. Coffee & Muffins before Stratford’s Annual Town Meeting was a positive...
Community Building Recap – Building Relationships & Aligning Goals
Community building activities and events from this past fall and winter in northern Coos and northeastern Essex County have truly served to strengthen community ties and align goals. Energy is building around common issues of importance, and community members are...
Summer Event Highlights up North
This summer was very busy, but a couple of events I was heavily involved in stood out as truly embodying the work we are doing in community building. After several months of planning with local partners, we pulled together a very successful Splash Pad Social at the...
Strengthening Our Communities – Stratford Rising
Stratford is definitely on a positive up-swing, and the community is making that happen together. As a Community Steward I meet a lot of people and hear about a wide range of needs and goals in the area I serve. The challenge is to find and prioritize common threads...
Summer Picnic & Play Series!
We are teaming up with the Family Resource Center to host a series of three “Picnic & Play” meet-ups on Fridays at parks in the North Country this summer. After listening to what families we were looking for, we came up with fun offerings at three different...
Stewartstown Student Showcase
The classroom showcase will be from 5:00 to 5:30 pm. Pizza will be available from 5 to 5:45 pm The concert will begin at 6:00 pm We are excited to be partnering with the Stewartstown Community School on an event on May 30th, starting at 5 p.m. at the school. As a way...
Stratford Community Pre-Town Meeting Social
On the morning of March 16th, residents of the Stratford area are invited to the Fuller Town Hall, located at 1956 US Route 3 to visit prior to the town meeting. The Community Builders Hub is providing free coffee, and the Stratford Grange 238 will be offering...
All Good Things Take Time
It’s important to give things time. Time to build, to grow and to blossom. Building relationships in community takes time. The more we connect with others and strengthen those bonds, the stronger our communities get. That social support is so valuable in so many ways.
As I pick up lights from the jack-o-lanterns community members carved and placed along the walking path at the park in Stratford, I think about how the park is becoming a treasured community gathering place. It is providing opportunities for connections to grow over time. Just this spring we helped to host a ribbon cutting for its grand opening (or welcoming as we called it), and since then there have been weekly community kickball games between neighbors throughout the summer, meet ups at the playground, friends getting together to walk, play pickleball or basketball, and now, a Halloween display created by neighbors, combined with the library’s storywalk.
Improved gathering spaces. That was one of the things our community members identified as a priority when I got them together a couple of years ago at the Connecting the North Country event at Mohawk Falls. This is a step in the right direction towards that goal.
Connections are growing in other circles too. Over the past several months, I’ve helped to get our local historical societies together to share ideas and collaborate. They recently held a museum tour day, at each of their locations, to draw more attention to their spaces. The following weekend, they hosted a regional history presentation entitled “Then & Now in the North Country”, at the Tillotson Center in Colebrook. Before heading up to the theater, each group set up a table for their organization to showcase their area’s history and socialize with attendees. They worked together to collect photos for the presentation and share their local insight with the crowd, resulting in a wealth of historic knowledge that delighted the audience. A renewed sense of energy and pride in our place is being felt through these efforts, and the hope is, more people will get involved to keep it going. Check out Northern NH & VT History on Facebook to learn more about the local history of the North Country and the happenings of these groups.
At the Hub, we build and lead with relationships. It takes showing up consistently with neighbors, bringing energy, enthusiasm and a willingness to listen deeply. Seeking to understand and honor the history or our communities and to create environments where others can be their true selves. The connections are growing, it just takes time. The results are pretty great to see.