Bend community members and visitors have already seen new inspiration, messages and lots of orange popping up on social media and around town as part of the Bend JOY Project. Back for its third consecutive year, the project has recently launched a new program — a 10-Day Community Challenge. Designed to help individuals and families take a thoughtful approach to fostering joy and positivity, the Community Challenge includes a downloadable checklist to help guide meaningful moments.
The Bend JOY Project’s Community Challenge includes the following categories to help participants “Plan out each day with friends or family and let their JOY flags fly.”
- Family
- Friends
- Community
- Animals
- Nature
- Food
- Music
- Education
- Self-care
- Compassion
Each day’s theme includes tips and ideas for fulfilling the challenge and a downloadable checklist is available on the website.
Many more events, activities and materials are spreading JOY through the spring in Bend, including inspirational messages on shareable bookmarks, social media, banners, billboards, daily text messages and more. The community is encouraged to get involved and many opportunities are available to incorporate JOY into the workplace, existing community events, schools, nonprofit organization initiatives and other partnerships. Bend JOY Project materials — stickers, postcards, bookmark share cards and posters, for example — are available at the Ticket Mill in the Old Mill District through April.
The Bend JOY Project is a challenge, a conversation, an opportunity, an experiment and a mission to bring joy in meaningful ways to keep our community happy, strong and vibrant. The Bend JOY Project launched for the first time in 2017 to inspire kindness and thoughtful actions in the community. It was so well received that it continues to return, with new expressions of JOY, each year.
