By Leah Veldhuisen ’19
A shift in perspective can go a long way. That’s the thinking behind the Gratitude Project coordinated by the CC Wellness Resource Center. The project involves programming aimed at helping individuals and the campus community connect with feelings of gratitude for positive aspects of their lives.
To wrap up Block 4, the Gratitude Project invited students, faculty, and staff to fold origami paper cranes that will be made into an art installation. They were also able to find out what makes members of the campus community feel grateful. During Block 3, there was a display of sticky notes on a window of the Worner Campus Center and members of the CC community were encouraged to write what they were grateful for and put their own sticky note on the window. The origami paper for the cranes is printed with the many things people wrote on their sticky notes.
In the second week of Block 5, the instillation of cranes will go on display in Worner Campus Center and while the exact design of the exhibit is yet to be determined, Heather Horton, director of the Wellness Resource Center, says the art will embody the idea of “gratitude flying around campus.”
According to Horton, there were many reasons to initiate this project. The overarching goal is to, “help individuals and the community as a whole connect on a more regular basis with a sense of gratitude for the people, places, and practices that make our lives better,” she says. Inspiration came from national dialogue and research on gratitude from the Southern Poverty Law Center and Greater Good Gratitude Research. Horton says that “it’s easy to focus on what we feel is lacking in our lives or what isn’t going well, but when we are able to shift our attention to what we have, we are likely to feel better.” This idea ties in with Horton and the Wellness Resource Center’s desire to “create a different kind of culture on our campus, where we can be honest and talk and understand across differences, but also appreciate the people around us even when (perhaps even especially when) they have different beliefs and ideas than we do.” Horton says engaging gratitude can help with that.
Other aspects of the Gratitude Project include the journaling series put on by the Wellness Resource Center the second Tuesday of every block at 3:30 p.m. in Worner Room 226, and Qigong every Tuesday, 5:30-7 p.m. in Shove Memorial Chapel’s side chapel, as well as gratitude yoga; check with the Office of the Chaplain for dates and times.
Wow, what an amazing project! We need more people like them!