Community events and working sessions

Welcome

The conversation continued at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Fort Myers, an evening testimony and listening session built around what the community is experiencing and what can actually be done. Refreshments were served, and the orientation table welcomed newcomers. The meeting was deliberately scheduled on a weekday evening so that neighbors who observe the Sabbath could attend.

From the room

• A statement from Colombia: an attendee read a message from a Colombian-born neighbor now in Naples, describing the devastation of the recent earthquakes (hundreds dead and injured, homes and schools destroyed, roads cut off) and the everyday citizens organizing humanitarian aid, asking what this group could do for a place suffering so far away.
• A teacher’s birthday cake: an attendee shared the story of a fourth-grader whose parent did not come home, and the teacher who had the whole class celebrate his birthday, a small act of compassion that lifted the entire class.
• The email list works: an attendee reported that a values sign-up sheet with email addresses, started by a volunteer, is already delivering: a request reached members the same day to support a local family restaurant being used as a staging area by enforcement vehicles despite the owners’ requests, by patronizing it that Friday.
• Words matter: an attendee who wears a “make America kind” button everywhere said people comment on it wherever she goes; words are why we give sermons, write books and keep libraries.

Tending the garden

The Action Tables were described as plants in a garden: some get sun (attention) and water (care), and some do not. The veterans table never got sun; affordable housing got sun and water but no one to tend it. When community leaders age out or pass away, they leave a void, and the garden now being planted is a chance to design something that outlasts any one person. This year the organizers are committed to finding a nonprofit to represent each table, so every table has a steward and the nonprofits themselves benefit.

Skills for compassion

• Companioning: drawn from the Virtues Project’s five strategies (speaking the language of the virtues, recognizing the moment, setting boundaries, honoring humanity, and companioning), companioning is a learnable technique of deep listening: help someone reach the core of their suffering, then help them see the virtue that might help them climb out. The room itself, one speaker said, needs to get better at companioning as a group.
• An infrastructure for compassion: an attendee proposed a shared toolkit of community skills (companioning, organizing, fundraising, event production) so people stop relearning the same skills and falling into the same pitfalls, and effort can snowball instead of being duplicated. After the spoken word comes the written word, and after that, more durable structures: the group’s Action Table accomplishments were recently documented on its website, and the open question is what the next step is to create lasting change.

Ideas and follow-through

• Every new idea is a new table: the group’s self-serve formation rule: any new idea can become a table that people then organize around, with a community-infrastructure table suggested as one candidate.
• A list of unclaimed ideas: keep the ideas thrown out at meetings that nobody has claimed, and show the list to newcomers, since some people are self-starters, and others are willing to work but need somewhere to start.
• Support each other’s events: announce one another’s events (racial equity, interfaith and similar gatherings) so the group can show up for each other; a member experienced in campus tabling offered to help build energy at the university before the next event, with dates to be matched once chosen.
• Follow-up on issues raised: an attendee asked the group to build a way to follow up when someone raises a crisis in a meeting; if an action is needed, the group should make it happen.
• Buttons that carry the link: an attendee suggested making the button bigger, with the heart as the QR code, so the website is always at hand; more designs are coming and a distribution plan is being worked out.

Closing

Next month the conversation returns to its regular format. As the session closed, the room was left with a standing challenge: how do we confront injustice, including immigration and racial injustice, with compassion and without aggression, in a way that does not villainize another human being? It may not be possible, the speaker said, but this room has the capacity and the wisdom to figure it out.

Welcome

The room filled past capacity for the first-anniversary celebration. The gathering opened with the group’s covenant of respect, and a one-sentence description of every Action Table was read for the many newcomers.

One year of conversations

A year-in-review presentation looked back on twelve Community Conversations in twelve months, and the venues that carried them: the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Fort Myers, the Quality Life Center, FGCU (about 90 attendees and the most young people of any conversation), Midwest Food Bank, and the South County Regional Library, chosen because people were driving in from as far as Naples and Lehigh Acres. The venue rotation is how a Fort Myers conversation grew into a Southwest Florida one.

The year in review

• By the numbers, as reported: 61 organizations represented over the year, across 10 community sectors, with 7 Action Tables at work and more forming, including a new Entrepreneurship group and a planned Braver Angels table for conversations across political and religious divides.
• Compassionate Fort Myers became Compassionate Southwest Florida.
• Growing food: the community garden at the Quality Life Center is now producing food, and the Quality Life Center began picking up food from Midwest Food Bank to distribute to students at its academy.
• The mental health table renamed itself a task force, to better fit the work it has organized.
• The May conversation became the FGCU kindness summit, with 31 participants from this group taking part.
• The framework offered for the year ahead: a movement becomes durable when its values are translated into shared language, roles, tools and habits. The work is volunteer-run and loosely organized, with responsibilities shared among community leaders, the website being one example of members stepping up. Year two has no set plan: it is ours to shape.

Music

The meeting’s songs anchored the morning: “Humble and Kind” opened the program, and “We Are Only Passing Through” followed the keynote: if you can’t change the world, change the world within your reach. Attendees with talents in music and the arts were invited to bring them into this work.

Keynote

The keynote, “We Shall Be Holy: a call to and for compassion,” reflected on remembrance and reconciliation, drawing on the call in Leviticus 19 to love your neighbor as yourself. Kindness leads to connection, connection to friendship, and on through trust and respect to love, and it starts with the smallest act available.

10,000 kind acts

KindLee introduced its challenge to document, inspire and celebrate 10,000 kind acts before the next kindness summit. Kind people rarely post about their own kindness, so the ask is to tell on each other: share the acts you receive or witness. A $10,000 donation from a law firm will seed small grants so children and families can take part regardless of means, and youth groups including a grief center for children are already joining.

A reflection on the beginning

One of the people who started Compassionate Fort Myers joined by video from California. After the last general election, alarmed by the division in the community, he had looked for a way to help it heal, and instead of a caped crusader, hundreds of supercitizens showed up. Compassion is not a luxury, it is a civic necessity; kindness is not sentimental, it is structural. He closed with an invitation for year two: keep widening the circle, not by force but by welcome.

Website and pins

Pins and stickers on the tables carried the group’s website address and QR code. The website gathers every Action Table’s work and accomplishments, will carry event information going forward, and is the main point of contact for up-to-date, accurate information about the organization and its events.

Panel: compassion in practice

• A moderator led a panel of Action Table representatives through what compassion looks like in practice.
• A moment compassion changed something: an Atlanta parking-lot encounter defused by an apology, anger melting into something childlike once the other person simply felt acknowledged; and the Quality Life Center becoming a food-distribution point so its children had food they would otherwise not have had.
• When institutions internalize compassion: it becomes the culture of the organization, passing down, back up and out, while a culture of dominance (I’m bigger, older, smarter than you; get in line) is what gets in the way.
• The hardest part of this work: heated moments at one’s own table; watching compassionate efforts get foiled in the immigration system; preaching to the choir and wanting to reach people who disagree; and compassion feeling outnumbered and fragile, as it does on social media, or when a neighbor dismisses the whole effort as people chasing government money, and the answer is that it’s just volunteers who care.
• Listening: we have two ears and one mouth for a reason: practice listening without going straight into defense.

From the room

• Attendees were invited to name someone who showed them what compassion looks like when it costs something.
• A neighborhood came together on a Friday evening to find a lost dog’s home before dark.
• A 98-year-old survivor of the Holocaust who lost her whole family and chose kindness and generosity instead of bitterness.
• After Hurricane Ian, neighbors on Fort Myers Beach who had never spoken pulled together with time, money and tears until the whole neighborhood could celebrate together.
• A father who, well into his nineties, quietly rounded up friends isolated after strokes (wheelchair in the trunk, takeout, a park bench) for years, until one of the wives finally told the story.
• Compassion is not a feeling; it is a decision we make over and over again, and you never know who is watching you be a role model.

Becoming

A facilitated writing activity, “Becoming,” invited everyone to write a few phrases, a short poem that is honest rather than perfect, through three doors of compassion: toward yourself, toward others, and toward the world. The facilitator shared a poem of her own.

Labyrinth

A certified labyrinth facilitator led a contemplative walk on the church’s on-site labyrinth: one way in, one way out, no decisions to make. The four R’s guided the walk: remember (we are made from love, to bring love), release (let go of what blocks us), receive (open to what is already planted within), and return, because no one returns from a pilgrimage the same. Walkers carried a communal intention of compassion, and gathered after in a word collage.

Announcements

• Books and resources: books on compassion brought back from the spring kindness summit, plus materials on the kindness challenge, were available at the back table to take home.
• The next meeting falls near the anniversary of the March on Washington. An attendee organizing a trip invited anyone interested to join or coordinate.
• A sign-up followed the gathering for anyone wanting to help spread the word about the 10,000 kind acts challenge.

Closing

The formal program closed with a prayer written for the day and, some minutes after the room broke, one last song held close to the quiet room: “I Think You’re Wonderful.”

Welcome

The group met at the Fort Myers Regional Library for an evening of conversation, connection and community. The meeting focused on strengthening the Action Tables: each table worked through a development worksheet describing its identity, purpose and plans, and newcomers were welcomed at an orientation table.

Action tables

The tables that worked on their worksheets that evening included Community Kindness, Sustainable Food Access, Mental Health, One Race Coalition, Youth Programs and the Virtues Project. A new Entrepreneurship group formed that night at the orientation table.

Tables were asked to finish their worksheets and submit the same information through an online form, so each group’s identity, purpose and vision could be gathered in one place and reflected on the website.

Afterward

The organizer followed up with every table after the meeting, thanking them for the evening’s discussion and encouraging each group to complete its form.

The May gathering

For its May gathering, Compassionate SWFL joined the k20 Kindness Without Borders Inaugural Summit at Florida Gulf Coast University (May 14–17, 2026) instead of holding a standalone conversation of its own. The group took part in the Saturday, May 16 program, which was built around the theme Kindness in Community. The daytime program at The Water School began at 9:00 AM with a complimentary lunch, and an Evening of Kindness & Film followed from 6:00 PM to 9:00 PM at Seidler Hall, with dinner included.

Saturday’s conversations focused on community building; faith and interfaith dialogue; education; healthcare; aging; personal well-being; and the ripple effects of kindness. The summit brought global kindness leaders together with educators, healthcare professionals, faith leaders, community builders and advocates.

At the summit

The day included a welcome from the director of FGCU’s Roots of Compassion and Kindness (ROCK) Center, sessions on kindness and community building and on kindness in education, a session on self-kindness, and an interfaith panel. Attendees also brought home books and other compassion resources to share with the group at later meetings.

The tenth conversation

In the year-in-review at the first-anniversary celebration in July, the group counted this summit day as its tenth Community Conversation: in May, the group joined a partner’s event instead of holding its own conversation, and about 31 Compassionate SWFL participants took part across the summit days.

The gathering

Compassionate SWFL held its ninth Community Conversation on Saturday, April 25, from 10:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. at the South County Regional Library in Estero. Community members, nonprofits and new voices were welcomed.

Program

The session was organized to keep turning compassion into action through focused, action-driven table discussions across Southwest Florida: strengthening ongoing initiatives, identifying barriers, and building momentum toward community-driven solutions. Action Tables were asked to share progress and key insights, identify next steps, clarify the partnerships and support they need, and welcome new participants into the work. First-time attendees could connect with an Action Table and find a place to engage.

Welcome

The eighth Compassionate SWFL Community Conversation was hosted by Midwest Food Bank, which welcomed the group and was thanked for its generosity and support. Attendees heard about the food bank’s work: it provides food to other organizations, moves roughly $21 million in food per month to about 2,000 partner organizations serving some 4 million people, operates in five states as well as Kenya and Haiti, and keeps administrative costs under 1 percent. The food bank is looking for volunteers, especially in the summer, and the group discussed the possibility of organizing a volunteer day.

Updates and announcements

• Quality Life Center and Midwest Food Bank. The two organizations have partnered, and food is now being distributed from the kitchen.
• Interfaith Action Group. A workshop on difficult conversations was announced for April 18 at Beacon Executive Suites.
• NAACP Book Buddies. The NAACP’s Book Buddies project pairs readers over Zoom.
• Next meeting. The next Community Conversation was announced for April 25, 10:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m., with a location still to be found.

Table discussions

• Food access and a community garden. The table worked toward two linked goals: affordable food resources and a local garden or food forest. A garden area behind the Quality Life Center has been mapped; raised beds may be built with free sawmill lumber and materials gathered opportunistically. Open questions include what to plant, how to source seeds and starts, and how to secure sponsorships.
• Affordable housing. The table discussed education and outreach to private landlords, approached with a compassion framing.
• Education. The table is working to bring the Virtues Project into the public school system.
• Mental health. A crisis-diversion program reported redirecting a large share of calls away from involuntary psychiatric evaluation toward lower-intensity intervention and available mental-health care pathways.
• A representative of the Florida Department of Health attended from the department’s marketing team and shared information about free programs related to insulin, epilepsy medication and HIV treatment.

The gathering

Compassionate SWFL held its seventh Community Conversation on Saturday, February 28, from 10:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. at the Quality Life Center. It brought neighbors together again to keep building a more compassionate Southwest Florida, where compassion shows in how people listen, show up and care for one another.

Program

The morning was organized to hear progress updates from the Action Tables and to take part in action-driven table discussions focused on advancing solutions for a healthier, safer and more compassionate Southwest Florida. Tables were asked to share progress and key insights, identify immediate action steps, clarify the partnerships and supports they need, and welcome new participants into the work. Newcomers could join an Action Table or explore new areas of engagement as their interests evolved.

The gathering

The sixth Community Conversation met on Saturday morning, January 10, at the Quality Life Center, combined with the State of the Q community address for one shared morning of connection, reflection and action.

State of the Q

The announced program for the address included program highlights, upcoming initiatives, financial insights, and ways for community members to keep making an impact in the community.

Community Conversation

The conversation portion of the morning was organized to hear updates from work groups, welcome new voices into the movement, and gather community ideas to shape future actions. Work-group tables from the previous gathering were invited to report their progress and plans going forward, using a shared template as an optional reporting format, and groups were encouraged to meet in advance to develop their road maps. Participants could also join new or different work groups as their interests evolved.

The gathering

The fifth Community Conversation toward a more Compassionate Fort Myers met on the evening of Tuesday, December 9, at the Quality Life Center. The evening was organized around the question of what makes Fort Myers a healthier and safer place to live, work, play and study.

The program was planned around updates from the work groups formed at earlier gatherings, welcoming new voices, and continuing to shape initiatives in areas such as youth leadership and health equity. Attendees had opportunities to join a different work group as their interests evolved.

Action tables

Tables active that evening included affordable and accessible education, affordable and accessible healthcare, affordable housing, available food resources, available mental healthcare, the community kindness initiative, racial equity, and veterans.

The gathering

Sixty participants gathered for an evening focused on one question: what makes Fort Myers a healthier and safer place to live, work, play and study? Neighbors joined educators, local business leaders, youth, several faith communities, advocacy groups and City of Fort Myers officials, with the mayor of Fort Myers in attendance. Building on the three previous conversations, the evening was given to action planning and work-group formation.

Arrival and welcome

Doors opened with refreshments and time to talk. Handouts introduced the Virtues Project and a “ladder of engagement” showing how anyone can move from showing up, to joining in, to driving projects, to shaping the work’s direction. The program opened with an invocation and grounding reflection, words of thanks for community partners, and a short reflection on the history of the compassionate-community movement and why this gathering mattered.

From ideas to action

Participants chose issue tables set up from the priorities earlier conversations had surfaced: available food resources, available mental healthcare, racial equity, youth programs, kindness and compassion grants, affordable and accessible healthcare, affordable housing, and affordable and accessible education. The ideas were placed on the petals of the permaculture flower. Each table was asked to name one bold idea that could create lasting impact and one immediate step that could be taken within 30 days.

Table discussions

• Available food resources: the table asked how to help people bring food home, whether food pantries are the only backstop when benefits fall short, and what role the city could play, including donating land for a food forest, planting gardens in parks and on neglected strips, and offering cheap leases for garden boxes. Partnerships were discussed with Harry Chapin Food Bank, Cultivate Abundance to connect pantries directly with farmers, and a mission in Immokalee that regularly feeds and donates food; ideas included opening the Quality Life Center kitchen to organizations that already distribute food, and composting partnerships to keep food waste out of the trash. Hope Clubhouse’s daily lunch, cooked with food from its own gardens and a local farm, and the Victory Garden initiative planting food forests in residential yards, were lifted up as models.
• Affordable and accessible healthcare: the table mapped how people find care and what stands in the way: cost, medication prices, transportation and time. Resources named included Lee Health’s website and its community health needs assessment, mobile health units, telehealth, a dental project off McGregor, in-home care options and homeless outreach teams. Ideas centered on plain-language education about where to go for care and how payment works, shared through shelters, food banks, churches, schools, and radio in Spanish and Creole.
• Kindness and compassion grants: the table planned a 365-day community kindness and compassion challenge, something kind every day, with employers, civic groups and neighborhood associations invited to adopt it, lapel buttons and a challenge document to spread it, and World Kindness Day on November 13 as a kickoff moment. Funding ideas included donor circles at the Collaboratory, city sponsorship, grants and corporate sponsors, with metrics to keep it accountable. The table also proposed a Fort Myers compassionate proclamation for the mayor and city council, and a city “Make a Difference Day.”
• Affordable housing: the table started with simply talking about the problem more, spreading the reach of nonprofits, meeting with landlords, and encouraging cooperation.
• Youth programs: the youth agenda project named the change in family structure as the community’s most significant challenge, and proposed a hub where youth and elders meet, plus transformational leadership work with peer groups aimed at ages 17 to 25, where young people set the plan and earn incentives along the way.
• Available mental healthcare: the table set out to gather local data on mental-health needs and to invite representatives to visit and speak with the group.
• Affordable and accessible education: the table looked at how the community can follow and take part in public education decisions, including attending public school meetings.
• Racial equity: the table traced the challenge to how engrained it is in history and to lack of education, and named community outreach, more volunteers and teaching people to use their voice as the way forward: think globally, act locally.

Building the roadmap

Each table identified its focus areas and the barriers to address, then participants signed up for working groups aligned with each priority, and each group chose a point person to coordinate next steps.

Virtues culture

The five strategies of the Virtues Project, the character-building framework used at the Quality Life Center, were introduced to the room.

Can red and blue work together?

Near the end of the evening, an email the organizers had received and the collective response they drafted were read aloud, and participants were invited to add their names in endorsement as an expression of shared values, followed by a short debrief.

Closing

The evening closed with a circle in which each person shared one word or phrase they were taking away, and the organizing team announced next steps and upcoming dates. Afterward, attendees said they valued the table work and the presence of city officials most, and many left the evening energized and hopeful about the movement’s growing momentum.

The gathering

Eighty-eight participants gathered at FGCU, the largest conversation yet, with students from the university joining residents, educators, local business leaders, youth, several faith communities, advocacy groups and neighbors. The focus of the morning was intergenerational: students and community members working together to imagine a compassionate future.

Gathering and fellowship

The morning began with coffee, snacks and time to meet one another before the program started.

Invocation and welcome

The program opened with an invocation and reflections from several faith leaders. A welcome from the university was followed by a look at one example of compassionate-community success on campus: FGCU’s Empty Bowls, which fights food insecurity.

Compassionate listening

A brief training and demonstration introduced the practice of compassionate listening: how to listen in a way that makes room for another person’s story.

Intergenerational dialogue

Students partnered with community members to brainstorm what a compassionate community could look like across generations. Themes from the tables:

• Compassion means being there for others: caring, listening without judgment, respecting differences and meeting people where they are.
• The world is less divided than it seems: look for similarities, find common ground, know your neighbor.
• Being open about practicing compassion: coming out as compassionate people.
• Education is the equalizer: education shapes behavior, and behavior shapes culture.
• Hope takes work. Learn first, then act; when you are up, take action, and when you are down, take care of yourself. Every small thing counts; connection catches on like dominoes.
• Everyone gets a voice, and all voices are equal. Belonging starts with being seen and heard.
• One table noted that children do better in the nine Florida counties that have Children’s Services Councils, so building a compassionate city can start with the child.

Where we’ve been, where we’re going

The group debriefed the intergenerational conversation, heard a summary of findings from the first two Community Conversations, and took a brief look at the permaculture flower as a possible organizing principle for the work. A presentation introduced the G Program.

Action plan: building an action agenda across the ages

In the final block, participants worked in mixed groups of students and community members to shape an action agenda, and the organizing team began forming action teams around it.

Food forest tour

After the meeting, anyone interested was invited to tour the campus food forest.

The gathering

About 40 participants came together: neighbors alongside educators, local business leaders, youth, people from six faith communities, advocacy groups and city government. Residents of the surrounding Dunbar community were especially welcomed. The purpose was the same as the first conversation: a shared exploration of what it means for Fort Myers to become a Compassionate City, this time moving from vision toward organized action.

Welcome and setting the tone

The morning opened with an icebreaker and a review of meeting norms: respect, equity and active listening, followed by an overview of the day.

Where we’ve been

A short history of the global Charter for Compassion was paired with Fort Myers milestones and lessons from the July gathering, with time for clarifying questions.

Defining compassion: lightning talks

• The Virtues Project compassion as one of the virtues that build strong communities.
• 12 Steps to a Compassionate Life a step-by-step personal practice.
• The Beloved Community a vision of community rooted in dignity and belonging.

Open Space: Compassion, where are you?

In the first Open Space session, tables shared stories of where compassion shows up in Fort Myers and where it is missing. Where it shows up included neighbors opening homes to one another after COVID, people freely helping each other after Hurricane Ian, therapeutic riding centers serving children and adults with disabilities, food banks, dog shelters, Habitat for Humanity, youth leadership programs, churches and other places of unity, front-office healthcare staff, and ECHO’s work on hunger. Where it is missing included local and national politics, disenfranchised neighborhoods, public schools, how immigrants are treated, civic discourse, mental healthcare, isolation and companionship, homelessness, and youth programs.

Mapping compassion across the domains

Tables then mapped strengths, gaps and possible partners across seven domains of sustainable living, drawing on permaculture’s way of seeing the whole community.

• Health and spiritual well-being: strengths in Lee Health outreach; gaps in mental-health resources, isolation and food deserts; ideas included free wellness activities in parks, mindfulness practice, cooking classes through small local clinics, food co-ops as places to meet neighbors, and more interaction among faith communities.
• Culture and education: strengths at the Quality Life Center, Alliance for the Arts, Barbara B. Mann Performing Arts Hall and the Gulf Coast Symphony; gaps in lost funding and a culture of separation and “othering”; ideas ranged from community events that teach compassion to storytelling through action theater.
• Land and nature: Hope Clubhouse’s gardens were praised; concerns about development influence on county decisions; ideas included cleaning up green spaces, attending county commissioner meetings, community gardens, pools and parks, and caring for earth and water.
• Building: gaps in affordable starter homes and vacant houses; the group focused on building trust, amplifying voices and identifying stakeholders before pressing for change.
• Tools and technology: the internet and AI were named as strengths, with gaps in access and in putting technology to humanistic use; ideas included basic computer classes for seniors.
• Finances and economics: entrepreneurial spirit, especially among immigrants, was named a strength; gaps included unfair wages and lack of support for entrepreneurs; ideas included financial literacy education in schools and for adults.
• Land tenure and community governance: soup kitchens, mobile pantries and Meals on Wheels were named strengths; homelessness, drug addiction and shelter space for pets and belongings were gaps; ideas included community-based policing, circles of trust with elected officials, and repurposing abandoned shopping malls as places where people could stay and learn restoration skills.

Building the roadmap

In a second Open Space round, tables generated ideas for activating compassion over the next six to twelve months, each identifying one bold idea and one immediate step. The gathering then voted on top priorities and participants signed up for working groups to carry the work forward, with each group naming a lead and a next action.

Closing circle

The meeting closed with each person sharing one word or phrase they were taking from the day.

The gathering

More than 40 neighbors came together for a full day of conversation about what it would mean for Fort Myers to become a Compassionate City: a city where empathy, dignity and care guide how people live, work and lead. Educators, members of six faith communities, local business leaders, youth, advocacy groups and neighbors took part, with facilitation provided by The Connection Partners. The gathering set out to lay the foundation for the city’s journey toward recognition as a Compassionate City.

Welcome and introductions

The day opened with a welcome from the host. Attendees were seated with people they did not yet know and introduced one another before the program began.

Morning program

A presentation by video introduced permaculture philosophy and the permaculture flower, a way of seeing how the many parts of a community connect and sustain one another.

Lunch followed, with refreshments provided for all who attended.

Compassionate St. Augustine

After lunch, a talk by video shared the story of Compassionate St. Augustine, a Florida city’s long-running compassionate-community effort.

World Café conversations

The afternoon used a World Café format, with two rounds of conversation at small tables. Participants told stories, practiced active listening and explored local issues including youth mental health, housing insecurity and civic division, building a shared vision for the city.

The Living Learning Wall

• Compassion starts at home, in neighborhoods and in spiritual communities, and spreads outward from there.
• Children should be taught compassion, kindness and empathy so they can pay it forward.
• Compassion has a ripple effect: others are lifted even as we ourselves are lifted.
• There is more goodwill and moral imagination in Fort Myers than the news usually shows, and the people in the room gave hope that a compassionate city is possible.
• FGCU’s ROCK program drew appreciation, as did local food pantries.
• A love-your-neighbor day was proposed for the city.

Closing

On the way out, attendees left their name badges in baskets to show whether they wanted to stay involved. All but one participant chose to stay involved, one person chose maybe, and the basket for no was left empty.

Announcements

• Saturday, August 16, at the Quality Life Center. The group will reconvene to build on this first conversation, working toward shared goals, inclusive language and actionable pathways for the city.