One Friday this past fall, my partner, Brian, and I sat together on the bleachers at our local high school soccer team’s senior night. As the sun set, we watched as the departing seniors were honored for their contributions. They shared thanks for their parents’ support as well as their hopes for the future. Then they took the field for a gripping, hotly contested match.

We didn’t have any children in the game — or even at the school. But ­because we live nearby, we chatted with neighbors, renewed old friendships, and enjoyed seeing the players, whom we remembered as kids, preparing to launch into the next chapter of their lives. We felt connected anew to our community and relished cheering at a fast-paced sporting event.

At a time when things feel more polarized than ever and loneliness has been declared a health epidemic, small gestures of connection matter. Building community not only helps us feel better but also improves our health and sense of belonging — all while fostering social ties that could provide a vital support system in times of need.

“Family and community can and should be where we find belonging, care, and love,” writes Mia Birdsong in How We Show Up: Reclaiming Family, Friendship, and Community. “We can create more of what we all need when we are in community.”

To start building community in a way that matters to you, consider taking on one or more of these ideas.

1) Talk to strangers.

Leverage the power of casual encounters by chatting up the person in line with you at the local farmers’ market or coffee shop. You never know when you’ll discover a common interest that could lead to a new connection.

Linger after events to engage with other attendees or staff. Talk to other parents and caregivers at the local park or playground with your kids. We come into contact with so many people in our daily lives — interacting with any one of them could spark a sense of community if we stay open to synchronicity.

2) Become a regular.

Look for a coffee shop or locally owned café in your neighborhood where you can get to know the staff and regular customers. Be friendly and make small talk. Lend a charger if someone’s device is low on battery power. If you’re always there on Tuesdays, say, you might start to recognize faces and can strike up a friendship. Just as everybody knew your name at the Cheers bar and the Friends crew hung out at Central Perk, you can cultivate community in a regular spot.

3) Offer to help neighbors with errands.

Keep an eye out for people in your community who might benefit from your time — especially if it’s tacked onto your other weekly errands. Pick up extra groceries or make a pharmacy run for an elderly community member. Deliver Meals on Wheels or volunteer at a local food bank.

4) Start a book, exercise, or game club.

If you love to read, work out, or play canasta, you could invite neighbors or members of a local Facebook group to get together. Even better, enlist a couple of other people to rotate hosting duties so you broaden the base of organizers. With a big enough invitation list, you’re bound to get at least a half-dozen people to attend.

If your home isn’t a suitable gathering spot, you can always meet at a public library or community center. By picking the same weekly or monthly time, people can schedule it and show up without needing to RSVP.

5) Engage in community gardening.

Get your hands dirty in a local community garden — or start one yourself. Time outdoors can improve your heart rate, lower blood pressure, boost vitamin-D levels, and ease stress.

Moreover, seeing flowers, fruits, and vegetables grow gives us all a sense of progress and hope. In a community garden, you’ll regularly work a plot next to the same people — a perfect opportunity to build social ties.

6) Make the most of your front porch.

Sitting on your porch lets you chat with passing neighbors. Host a porch party where you share munchies and beverages with friends. Or kick it up a notch with a musical “porchfest” featuring talented neighbors and their offspring. For years, our neighborhood enjoyed a periodic outdoor music “festival” featuring community artists. Throw in a pitcher of lemonade and some cookie trays, and it’s a party! The front stoop of your apartment building can also work — or make the most of the community spaces in your building.

7) Welcome new families.

When we moved into our current house, the neighbors down the street brought us a tray of cookies, and suddenly we felt part of a community. Our family continues that tradition with brownies or other sweet treats for new members of the neighborhood, sending the message, “We’re glad you’re here.”

8) Share skills.

During the pandemic, my son taught some neighborhood kids how to plant and grow strawberries. He could easily spare dirt, a few small pots, and clippings from his own patch.

Whether you’re handy with repairs or computing know-how, your neighbors would appreciate such instructions or assistance. You can formally teach them or help on a one-time basis.

9) Plan an outdoor viewing party.

Host an outdoor movie night for friends or neighbors, projecting a film or sporting event on the side of a garage or a large white sheet. Everyone can bring a folding chair or two. Pop some popcorn and boost the sound system. You’ll encourage the campfire effect of sitting down to an experience together — and leave feeling more connected.

10) Coordinate a yard sale or giveaway.

It’s great when one family declutters and posts items in a Buy Nothing group — but imagine the bounty from multiple homes! You can coordinate a yard sale with neighbors and friends or organize a giveaway. When you’re pooling the items, it aids the environment as well, because there’s less driving around the area to pick up free stuff.

11) Visit the lemonade stand.

When kids are selling their homemade elixir or artwork, or holding their own toy sale, stop by and at least say hi. I was walking my dog past a group of children selling bracelets on the sidewalk. Despite needing to get home, I paused to admire the beads and then commissioned a custom bracelet as a gift. Days later, the kids delivered it — along with their adorable smiles. And we felt more connected to our neighbors.

12) Volunteer your talents.

Brian volunteers as an usher for our local music center. He gets to enjoy spectacular shows for free — and build friendships with the fellow ushers and regular patrons. If music’s not your thing, you could become a citizen scientist, join a park-maintenance group, or mentor a student at your local school — choosing whatever matches your interests.

13) Share resources.

We can help our pocketbooks and the environment by sharing with others — while also deepening community ties. Pool resources by creating a tool-sharing or medical-equipment-sharing program in your neighborhood: Not everyone on your block needs a power saw or snowblower of their own.

Shortly after our first child was born, Brian and I started a babysitting co-op with other families from a postpartum support group: Members agreed to exchange babysitting time. The workload was light, since babies usually go to sleep by 7:30 p.m., and it gave all of us a chance to engage in some adult social time.

Apartment dwellers might start a “free” box in the laundry room or a WhatsApp group chat where people can offer to pick up grocery items.

This article originally appeared as “Creating Community” in the May/June 2025 issue of Experience Life.

Justin Sutherland is standing still, if only for a moment, as the crowd gathers at Grand View Lodge in Nisswa, Minn. The chef and TV host travels widely, but he’s in his home state to open his latest restaurant, Northern Soul Smokehouse, at the popular resort about 150 miles northwest of Minneapolis. After speeches, Sutherland and his business partners step up to the long, blue ribbon and make the cut with oversized scissors.

Soul food in northern Minnesota? In a town that’s 95 percent white, 3.24 percent multiracial, and 1.16 percent Black? You betcha.

For the former Top Chef contestant, Iron Chef America winner, and Fast Foodies cohost, home has never been limited to one culture. Growing up in a Minneapolis suburb, Sutherland developed a love of food from a young age, introduced to his Japanese grandmother’s somen, his Norwegian grandfather’s lefse, and his African American grandparents’ soul food and barbecue recipes.

“Forget math — food is the universal language,” he writes in his cookbook, Northern Soul.

“I have a grandmother from Japan who moved over here during the Korean War speaking zero English, at a time when the United States had no relations with Japan,” he says. “She was told, ‘You can’t teach your family about Japan; you can’t speak the language; you’re American now.’ And she was terrified to teach my mom and my aunts and uncles — her kids — anything about her culture.”

Food was the gateway to her story, he recalls, and as he followed his grandmother around her kitchen, he discovered how food culture is really about connection — to our past and to one another.

“Food is so much more than a means to an end
— so much more than sustenance.”

After graduating from Le Cordon Bleu in Atlanta, Sutherland returned to Minnesota and worked his way up from a line cook to chef de cuisine at a James Beard Award–winning restaurant. In 2016, he opened his first place, Handsome Hog. In 2020, as other restaurants were shuttering during the pandemic, he moved Handsome Hog to a larger venue with a patio where he could continue operating. (Sutherland recently stepped away from Handsome Hog and is focusing on Northern Soul and his other venture, Big E.)

As difficult as the pandemic has been on the restaurant industry, it has also ­illuminated the inequities in the business, from pay to working conditions. “I think people just kind of took restaurants and service and that whole experience for granted,” he says.

As customers have ­returned, he sees a renewed appreciation for these community spaces.

That community bond was made clear after July 3, 2022, when ­Sutherland was piloting a boat and fell into the St. Croix River as he attempted to retrieve his hat. The boat’s propeller injured his left arm, head, and face, which required multiple surgeries.

Without health insurance — a common issue for restaurant workers — he was grateful for the GoFundMe collection of more than $275,000 raised by his friends and family; it covered a portion of his hospital bills.

Seeing the community rally to support him is something that still makes him emotional. “It’s almost like being a fly on the wall at your own funeral, you know, when you really see that impact you had on certain people’s lives — the small stories that people brought up that you never really thought mattered,” he says. “I’m very grateful and thankful, and it changes the perspective on the everyday.”

The experience deepened his appreciation for life: “It either defines it more or redefines it, solidifies it. It really made me realize I’m here to be something. To keep going.”

Sutherland’s path forward includes his latest TV series, Taste the Culture, which provides historical and cultural context on Black, Indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC) foodways. In December 2023, Sutherland received a Daytime Emmy for Outstanding Culinary Host for the show.

In one episode, Sutherland speaks with Keisha and Warren Cameron, the owners of High Hog Farm, a Black-owned-and-operated family farm that shares food, fiber, and education with its Atlanta-area neighbors. As they tour the farm, the couple notes the conversations that arise with visitors about reclaim­ing Black farming today while recognizing the toll farming exacted during slavery.

“Our agrarian history did not start here,” says Keisha, who explained that in farming, she’s reconnected to the land and to her ancestors.

Sutherland says he hopes the show helps viewers understand the narrative “that BIPOC food is the food of America.”

Q&A With Justin Sutherland

Experience Life | Your show Taste the Culture aims to tell the stories of BIPOC foodways. Why do you feel it’s important for people to explore more diverse cuisines?

Justin Sutherland | I think it’s not even about exploring more diverse cuisines. It’s realizing that, when we talk about BIPOC food — especially when we talk about African American food — that really is the food of America.

A lot of the grains and spices and plants that made their way over here on slave ships, coming from West Africa, are the foods that have made their way into our everyday lives. I think we take for granted where those foods came from and the struggle that food represents.

EL | What has this food journey taught you about yourself?

JS | I come from a very multicultural background. I have a grandmother from Japan. On the other side of my family, I have a grandfather from Mississippi, a descendant of slaves. They moved north to Iowa and brought that soul food culture with them. It’s been incredible learning my story and my family history, but also learning about the stories and the history of others.

What makes me so passionate about cooking the food that I cook, especially bringing that soul food north, is telling the stories of where that food really came from and how intertwined it is to the food that everybody’s already eating. So it’s been that journey of really settling into appreciating the food that built my family, the food that built this country, and the food that continues to sustain us.

EL | How can food connect us to one another?

JS | Food is so much more than a means to an end — so much more than sustenance. Although we need it for health and vitality, food is really what brings us together. Everybody eats. Every culture has their own specialty foods. And when all those things come together and connect, it inevitably connects people.

EL | You also write in your cookbook about food as a memory-maker …

JS | Yeah, food is just one of those things that has this natural ability to trigger memories. You smell a stew cooking on the stove; you smell a pot of collard greens that reminds you of grandma’s house. And it’s not always positive memories: We go out to eat for celebrating things — birthdays, weddings, accomplishments; we also go out to eat when we’re grieving.

It takes you right back to that place, to that time, and to the people you shared that experience with. It has this natural ability to instantly link you back to a previous memory, and in most cases, put a smile on your face.

EL | It’s common for people to disconnect from the pleasure of food when they are focused on improving their health. What would you say to those who have forgotten the joy of eating?

JS | We need food for vitality, for sustenance, for life. But in the United States, with so much unhealthy food around us, I think that the joy of eating has kind of gotten lost. There are ways to have extremely delicious food and still have it be healthy.

At the same time, don’t deprive yourself of the connections that are formed over a meal. I’ve always said that nobody’s ever mad at a barbecue. You get together; you’re around people you love. The smells, the conversations that are had, the problems that are solved — food just brings so much joy, and if you pigeonhole it into eating just to live, you’re missing out on so much of what it has to offer.

EL | How can food help build community?

JS | I think, in American culture, we’ve gotten away from that family time. When I was growing up, my parents were extremely busy. My mom was a flight attendant working all the time, but one thing that was important, no matter what, was that we sat down at the table. We had dinner together.

Now, many of us go through the drive-through. We eat on the fly. We eat while we’re working. We eat in front of the television. I think you learn so much by just taking that time to sit down with somebody else to eat.

Eating outside of your comfort zone, and eating in different communities, and with different cultures, and in different venues — it really resonates and ultimately changes you as a person. Your eyes get opened.

And whether you realize it or not, whether it’s intentional or subconscious, the more that you spend time with other people, the more you spend time eating other people’s cuisines, the more you take yourself out of your comfort zone and just stop and smell the brisket, you’ll definitely be thankful for that.

• An Example of Compassionate Communication
• The 4 Pillars of Effective Compassionate Communication

Your coworker Joe is a nice guy, but he’s an interrupter: You’ll nearly be done making a point and he cuts in — to agree, to disagree — doesn’t matter. Every time it happens, you feel frustrated and annoyed — and you’re ready to unload on him.

When a person or situation triggers our less savory emotions, blame and negativity arise. Blame is a reflexive response that helps us protect our egos and avoid the hard work of examining our own emotions and culpability.

The trouble is that blame and grumbling usually make bad situations even worse. If we’ve decided Joe is hopelessly rude, and we confront him about it with language that insinuates as much, we’re unlikely to inspire Joe to change his behavior, let alone get what we hope to get from the situation. Rather, Joe will probably just get defensive and level blame right back. And we wind up in the same frustrated and annoyed place where we started.

When we’re able to pause before we react and identify what’s going on beneath all the confrontational language, however, we can approach the situation with more compassion and understanding. This approach has several benefits: It helps us get more of our own needs met, it helps us better understand and meet others’ needs, and it allows us to more fully appreciate and enjoy our relationships.

“When you give other people the gift of your attention and empathy, it makes them feel understood and they become more open to hearing what’s on your mind,” says Dr. Michael Nichols, professor of psychology at the College of William and Mary and author of The Lost Art of Listening.

This is the guiding philosophy of compassionate communication, an approach to speaking and listening that helps us respond to others more effectively in even the most difficult situations. Practicing compassionate communication promotes deeper connections with loved ones, more harmonious relationships and a greater sense of inner peace.

Motivated by Compassion

Compassionate communication (also known as nonviolent communication) helps people remain empathetic with each other, even in situations fraught with anger or frustration. It teaches people to speak to others without blaming and to hear personal criticisms without withering. This approach can be used to respond to nearly any situation — from dealing with troublesome colleagues in the workplace to ironing out rough patches with romantic partners and children at home.

Clinical psychologist Marshall B. Rosenberg, author of Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life, is generally credited with creating and promoting this approach to communicating. He theorized that most communication is an effort to get a core human need met and that if we train ourselves to home in on the deeper, unspoken needs underlying and informing harsh language, we can respond more effectively.

When we’re able to pay attention to core needs — our own and others’ — we’re motivated to act out of compassion instead of out of guilt, fear or shame. And, when we’re motivated by compassion, we don’t rely on defensive or blaming language — language that stalls and sometimes completely derails effective communication — in difficult situations. Instead, we approach others with more kindness and understanding — and, in turn, we’re more likely to be able to both give and receive what’s most needed.

An Example of Compassionate Communication

Rosenberg’s technique for communicating compassionately relies on four core steps:

1. 1. Observing a situation without judgment;
   2. Discerning which emotions are being triggered in the situation;
   3. Connecting those emotions to the underlying needs that aren’t being addressed; and
   4. Making a reasonable request of the other person.

Let’s go back to our interrupting coworker, Joe. Say you’re talking in the break room, he interrupts you, and all your intense, negative feelings get triggered. When using compassionate communication, your first goal is to pause and observe what’s happening. Ask yourself: What just happened? (I was talking and Joe interrupted). Now identify the feelings that reflexively cropped up for you. Ask yourself: What am I feeling? (I feel frustrated and annoyed).

The next step is to connect the feelings you just observed and described with the deeper needs that underlie them. Humans share several core needs, including autonomy, physical nurturance, connection and respect. Most of our communication is an attempt to meet one of those needs.

To parse what needs underlie your feelings, get specific. Describe your emotions with as much detail as you can. Use words like anxious, rushed or overlooked, as opposed to bummed, for example. Specific language will contain more clues about the needs involved.

Let’s take your feelings about coworker Joe. Do you feel intruded upon? Disrespected? Unheard? Insulted? If you feel disrespected or insulted, you may have a core need to be respected in the workplace. Reviewed in this context, the very nature of your irritation and frustration can become an important tool in self-discovery.

Once you connect with your deeper needs, you’re more likely to recognize them not as good or bad, but as human. Your natural empathy comes to the fore (you’re not a bad person for being annoyed by Joe, you simply need to be heard), and defensiveness and anger start to recede (Joe’s habit of interrupting isn’t intended to drive you crazy — it just rubs you wrong because it steps on some important needs of your own).

It’s from this place of greater empathy and receptivity for yourself that you can use the same questioning techniques to examine Joe’s motives and feelings — and begin to recognize the very human needs driving his behavior. Your subsequent deeper understanding of Joe’s needs allows your natural compassion to flourish when you respond to him.

Mastering Compassionate Responses

Now that you’ve explored the situation with Joe on a deeper, more human level, you’re primed to respond to him in a way that both addresses the deeper needs at play and also has a greater chance of getting those needs met.

The most effective way to frame your compassionate response to Joe, according to Rosenberg’s model, is to make a clear, reasonable and positive request. The idea here is to both limit confusion and prevent reactive resistance.

For example, the request shouldn’t be, “Please don’t interrupt me,” but rather, “Would you be willing to let me finish my thought before you begin speaking?”

This takes some practice, but that shift in dynamic between two people eventually can alter the tone of the relationship — for everyone’s benefit.

The 4 Pillars of Effective Compassionate Communication

There are four components in the compassionate communication model. Each step helps you respond to others with less blame and more compassion in difficult situations.

1. Practice observing actions, rather than judging or evaluating them. This helps to short-circuit emotional reactions and gives you the opportunity to harvest important insights.
2. Identify your feelings in difficult situations and describe them in specific terms. Try using precise words like unsettled or agitated, instead of good or fine. Specific emotions provide clarity, simplifying the connection between your feelings and the deeper needs underlying them.
3. Explore how needs inform your feelings: The next time you experience a strong emotion, try linking it to a need. For example, if you feel angered with your spouse for forgetting to pay the bills on time, see if that feeling connects with your core need to act responsibly, or perhaps your need to feel secure, taken care of or in control. Next try to connect what he might be feeling — perhaps overwhelmed at the number of chores on his plate, or frustrated that he’s not better at keeping track of fiscal details — with a deeper need of his. Perhaps he feels called to focus on other things, a need to succeed in areas that come more naturally to him, or a need to do things “his own way.” Taken in this light, his “offense” may begin to make more sense, to seem more human, and therefore more deserving of a compassionate, constructive response. Identifying and owning your needs and preferences may, at the very least, help you evolve your own reaction beyond accusations and nagging.
4. Practice making specific, positive requests for what you would like someone to do to meet your needs, instead of instinctively reacting to a situation with blame and negativity. Focus on what you want to create and experience or would like to see happen, as opposed to what you want to prevent or stop.

This article has been updated. It originally appeared in the March 2009 issue of Experience Life.

Loneliness is an epidemic, but meaningful ­encounters with others can support your overall well-being and happiness. While deep connections in your close relationships are vital, even micromoments can improve your sense of belonging.

Take Action

Ask a barista or store clerk, “How are you doing?” and really mean it. Make eye contact, smile, and wave to passersby. Call or text a friend. Mail a card to long-distance relatives. Set an intention to be present in your interactions

Here Are More Ways to Create Micro-Connections