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by Gary Messinger and Lisa Mills

What is community-building? How can we promote, facilitate, and support it?

Options in Community Living has been building community for 24 years. In Sharing Community, the authors share their experiences, the lessons they’ve learned, and some of their most meaningful efforts. This book establishes that the real, most basic reason for community-building is to find and develop opportunities for relationships, belonging, inclusion, and more meaning in the lives of all involved.

The authors shows how each staff person is a resource and how community-building efforts have a snowball effect: one unexpected connection leads to another, which in turn leads to new opportunities and more connections. With this process, there is no end to the possibilities.

As the authors state, "Community building teaches us that when people open up their lives to the unexpected, amazing things can happen."

So, explore the experiences that the Options staff share in this book – their processes, efforts, and successes. We hope that these experiences, successes, failures, and lessons learned will inspire you to reflect and take action to build your own community.