Community | Denver, CO

A group of Wake Foresters gathered over dinner in Denver, CO on March 19, 2019 to discuss Community.

Overview and highlights of our Call to Conversation:

• Several themes emerged from our discussion about our valued communities including our families who represent the core of many members. Other themes involved transitional communities, effective leadership, mentoring, emotional support, collaboration, peer influence, growing through others, communities of strangers, children, cultural differences offering new perspectives, transcendental meditation and mobilizing life around community.
• We talked about transitional communities – A few meaningful friendships that make a person feel part of a special circle of colleagues who share common life issues of family, career and financial stability.
• Consistent growth experiences within communities were mentioned and we spoke about how members of a community who feel valued can grow into leaders of that community.
• One participant talked about mentoring students on campus during “office hours” and how it developed a “peer to peer” culture of collaboration and quickly turned into a community of career support, professional development and new friendships that expanded into an Instagram account on social media to share experiences of success and failure.
• We spoke about family as community. Family is key while moving around the country and growing up with transitional friends, classmates and team mates – the only constant is your family.
• We talked about learning about the values of new communities through living together – overcoming cultural differences and language barriers by living with a diverse group of people from all over the world. Developing deep connections with strangers that open new doors to communities of diverse and rich common connections.