Better Together

It doesn’t matter if you’re restoring habitat for wildlife or raising money for a worthy cause: doing good feels good. And doing good as part of a group feels even better.

“It’s a very common phenomenon,” says Sam Klarreich, a psychologist in Toronto. “We’re social creatures. We always have been.”

Joining a group, and volunteering with that group, wards off loneliness and depression—no surprise there—but research even suggests that it has physical health benefits, including lower blood pressure and increased longevity.

It’s not just the act of doing the work, or the satisfaction that comes with making a contribution, that will give someone a boost. Group volunteerism helpfully ticks off most of the categories in Maslow’s hierarchy of needs (remember first-year psychology?): safety and security; belongingness; esteem; even self-actualization.

“People band together, overcome problems, improve something, and then celebrate that success,” says Klarreich. “What could be more rewarding?”

Not much, according to cottager Paul Turner, who’s Bay Lake Pizza fundraiser raised money for a local school (see p. 72). “Just because people say, ‘That’s going to be a lot of work,’ it doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t do it,” says Paul. “It was a lot of work. But I tell people that it was probably the best thing I ever did.”

Paul’s story, and the other nine stories in the following pages, truly inspired us. We think that they’ll inspire you too.

The Stewards have got your back, Lake Scugog

It’s been a busy few years for the Scugog Lake Stewards. In 2017, the lake association, headed by Rob Messervey, the president, received an Ontario Trillium Foundation grant to lead a study in partnership with Kawartha Conservation,