Heart-Mind Well-Being Night at Frog Hollow Neighbourhood House

Educating our hearts and minds.

It was a night for compassion, creativity, friendship and building community at Frog Hollow Neighbourhood House on the night of Thursday, February 5, 2015. The energy in the room at these Heart Mind Index project gatherings is always warm, inviting, nurturing, collaborative and fun. We split into groups and each group worked on a project that represented how compassion looked to them. We created activities related to the Heart Mind Index that were the kinds of activities that members of our communities could take part in to spread the word about our endeavor.

There were heirloom conversation pieces, a beautiful memory book of compassion, musical activity ideas, circle time activities for the Family Drop-in Programs, Japanese Group, Spanish Group, Mandarin/Cantonese Group and a board game that focused on encouraging and building the domains of the Heart Mind Index.

Our event was facilitated by Diane, who is our Director of Family & Senior Programs, and Eva, who is our Community Outreach Coordinator.

Our goals for the evening…

Diane and Carrie are hard at work. Their project shows how our hearts connect to each other in their activity for circle time at the Family Drop-ins. They are hoping to create a ripple effect in the community.

Benelda is from the Multicultural Group at Frog Hollow and Maggie and Li (who isn’t in the picture) are from Thunderbird Community Centre. They created an Heirloom Conversation Piece. They hope to start a conversation about being heard and feeling understood in their Family Drop-in sessions.

Rosina and Alice from the Family Drop-in Program at Hastings Community Centre creating a book centered around compassion that they call “The Memory Book of Compassion”.

Time for show and tell.

Nila, Guadalupe, Maria Helena and Ana Lorena represent the Spanish Group. They came up with circle time activities where mothers can engage their families in learning about the different domains in the Heart Mind Index through relaxation, baby massage, cuddles, soft and gentle music, and fun in concrete behaviors.

Jacqueline, Kyra and Rhea put their heads together and invented The Heart-Mind Well-Being board game. It’s a game for ages 2 and up that encourages cooperation instead of competition and is based on the values of the Heart Mind Index.

Brainstorming ideas for the Heart-Mind Well-Being board game.

The Heart-Mind Well-Being board game is starting to come together.

Creating a memory book.

Presenting ‘The Memory Book of Compassion’, created by Rosina and Alice from the Family Drop-in Program at Hastings Community Centre.

Let’s get started!

Putting ideas into action.

It was fun to watch as these collaborative activities started to take shape.

Everyone worked hard to present activities that the entire community could feel part of and take part in. The room was buzzing with energy!

Here’s our Heart-Mind Well-Being Night at Frog Hollow group photo. The greatest thing about the night was that we were all brought together by our passion for giving back to the community. Jennie took amazing and beautiful photos of a really great and fun night!

Every project beautifully represented our desire to change the world one ripple at a time. Our goal is to connect to each other as human beings, from family to community in our neighbourhoods and further beyond our borders to one day encompass our global community.

We hope you enjoy our collection of photos and let us know what your idea of compassion looks like in the comments below. How do these photos inspire you? And remember you can join us anytime at Frog Hollow to volunteer, take a class, take part in a drop-in or just to visit us for a coffee. We’d love to see you! 🙂

*Photo Credit – All photos taken by Jennie Yuen.