Our Hometown
Plymouth | The Happiness Quest
Clip | 2m 34sVideo has Closed Captions
Dr. Marie Sanders relates what can happen when an entire town works together to discover happiness.
Dr. Marie Sanders relates what can happen when an entire town works together to discover happiness.
Problems playing video? | Closed Captioning Feedback
Problems playing video? | Closed Captioning Feedback
Our Hometown is a local public television program presented by NHPBS
Our Hometown
Plymouth | The Happiness Quest
Clip | 2m 34sVideo has Closed Captions
Dr. Marie Sanders relates what can happen when an entire town works together to discover happiness.
Problems playing video? | Closed Captioning Feedback
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This all started back in 2013.
Plymouth, New Hampshire is, home to Plymouth State University.
And the university was searching for a philosophy professor.
I came to town to interview for the position, and I was almost immediately struck that there was something special about the town of Plymouth.
I often describe it as stepping out of my car and into a Norman Rockwell painting.
Except it was all real.
The, charming downtown.
Everyone I talked to spoke about the town with such pride.
And even when we went into the businesses, we were treated less like customers and more like neighbors.
And so I knew I wanted to be a part of this community.
I always often wonder what it would be like to have an entire community focus on living a full and flourishing life.
Like, what would that look like?
There was a lot of research already in existence that when people felt connected to their communities, they tended to report higher levels of happiness.
But I couldn't find any region where an entire town had focused on happiness together.
And so Plymouth felt like the right place for that.
Now what the happiness quest basically entailed.
Was a combination of a research project with really just a series of very fun activities for the entire public to participate in.
Each month during the Happiness quest, we held 6 to 12 events.
Some of them were monthly events that recurred each month.
Many were not.
They ranged from things like community hikes, community picnics.
We had lots of gaming events.
In fact, one of my favorites was a life size Jenga event that was held at the local ice arena.
And we had participants from age 5 to 85.
And it was a lot of fun, So the entire event, series of events, I should say, was really designed, implemented and attended by the community.
So they built their own happiness from the ground up.
communities are contacting me across the United States.
I've even had a couple from other countries begin to reach out.
They want to hold their own town wide happiness class.
And it really warms my heart to think it all started here.
It started in Plymouth, New Hampshire,
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