Introducing: Hearth Community Nights
As human beings, we are innately social creatures. We desire connection and community with the same intensity that we need shelter and food. One feeds our physical bodies, the other our souls.
As globalization, industrialization, and digitalization grow at an ever increasing rate, it is more important than ever to put the in time and effort to create strong bonds with other people. Loneliness and isolation lie in wait for us wrapped up in the opportunities of mobility, technology, and abundance if we aren’t prepared to actively do the work it takes to belong.
When I moved to Boston six and a half years ago, and truthfully for many years prior to that, loneliness was my constant companion. My desire to belong was so strong it had become a physical ache. A child of divorce who left home at fourteen, I yearned for a community enough to start the clumsy, exhausting work of making one.
In July 2013, I began what would become Miranda’s Hearth with monthly Music, Art, & Wine nights in my apartment. I sang and drew and ate and laughed with near strangers, forming relationships that have continued and deepened to this day. While I desired a consistent space and group to be part of every week, I was too scared to ask for that level of commitment. Yet over the past four and a half years, thanks to the support of these first friends and then of hundreds of community members, I indirectly got to my goal. By the end of 2017, we were offering seven different monthly events and engaging people from all across the creative spectrum.
As I prepared to personally transition to working on the Hearth full-time last fall, I took the time to reflect on the programming we’ve offered so far. What was working? What could we do better? How could we best reach our goal of building a community through creativity?
I was humbled to have the support of Geoa Geer, Kyla Alterman, and Jess Muise on a newly formed programming committee, along with many other members of the Hearth Community, as I navigated these difficult questions. I put not only my business and programming strategies up for inspection, but my root desires and fears along with them. Under their guidance, I realized that the path forward was to return to my original desire: a weekly gathering for people from all walks of life to make, learn, and belong.
And so, after years of preparation, the Hearth Community Night finally begins. I hope you’ll join us with your newest heart-pounding idea, your half-finished slightly dusty projects, your latest recipe that is too good not to share, that article that you haven’t been able to stop thinking about, or the game that you haven’t been able to play yet. Come to be part of a growing community or just to do something fun for a night. Either way, we’ll be here, every Monday, ready to hang out and make something with you.
