Meeting the challenges of the pandemic with a new sort of community

FARMINGTON – It’s no question that what a “community” is has changed. The virtual world has become a catch-all for what people once did in groups, providing a space for virtual workout classes, movie nights, lectures, art exhibits and cooking demonstrations, and even concerts. But for public departments who revolve solely around the concept of celebrating community together, physically and mentally, the transition has required a more dramatic transformation of their very occupation.

The community center is often at the center of organizing social events in Farmington. Like others throughout Franklin County, the center ordinarily coordinates camps for children, provides after-school care, hosts fundraisers for small businesses and maintains the town’s common meeting ground. But with the ever-changing safety guidelines in recent times, Parks and Recreation Departments have had to reimagine their function in society. If the places that are normally packed with community members during the summer are left empty right now, what happens to the people who tend to those areas, who oversee the well-being of our community?

If the Farmington Parks and Recreation Department is any example for the masses, those people get to work. In the past few months, the department has moved the place for the community to gather to the virtual space, or more specifically, to their bustling Facebook page.

“I know many departments are sharing things on their pages, but I wanted to go a step further by creating original content with our own staff,” said Farmington’s Parks and Recreation Department Director Matt Foster.

The department has been hard at work designing weekly online programming. They post new videos every day, including weekly yoga sessions, nature activities, community field trips, sports educations tutorials, mindful and indoor activities, and various family crafts to keep supporting the community any way they can. The weekly schedule of videos provides viewers with some of the resources that they would normally access from their community centers.

While the department features others on occasion, such as taking a community field trip to the Origin building or the Fire Department for a tour, the ones facilitating most of these programs are Parks and Recreation Department staff members, including Brooke Bolduc, Jen Savage, Zac Conlogue, Griffin Conlogue, Jessica Howe, Joy Jancewicz and Sue Jones, all of whom Foster credited for their persistence and continued involvement in the shifted programming. It’s these staff members who are lacing up hiking boots and filming their own families while they show the public hikes in the area, or the ones rolling out yoga mats in their front lawns and leading meditations to diminish stress.

“The reason why I felt it was so important to use our own staff for these programs rather than just share something someone else created is because the individuals and families who typically use our services know our staff pretty well,” Foster said. “I thought it might mean more to the people participating to see the people who they all know and love in all of our online programming. I wanted to make sure that they knew we were there for them”

The attention to maintaining an intimate community as well as the attempts to keep this virtual community as human as possible is paying off. The department has received positive responses from the public regarding their attention to the online platform. Even when they can once again safely resume their normal activities, they will continue their online programming as well.

“In just the first two and a half months of doing online programming we had over 100,000 views, followers from over 30 states, as well as followers from over 14 countries. It started out as just an idea we had to try, but after seeing the amount of views and interactions we were receiving each week, we began to understand how important it was and knew we couldn’t stop,” said Foster.

In the time that the department has switched its attention to online programming, they have broadened the Franklin county community. What they’ve found is that a community is not just defined by its county lines, but by the breadth of their reach.

Foster admitted to his own change of view that will certainly direct him as the role of the Parks and Recreation Department continues to change to meet the needs of the public.

“Community has a whole new meaning to me now. If COVID-19 has taught me anything, it has shown me that no matter how small you are,” Foster said, “anyone has the potential to make a big impact.”

Updates from the Farmington Parks & Recreation Department are posted to their Facebook page, located here.