When a community begins to change toward the negative, residents take notice, though few typically get up and do something about it.
Joelyn Lutz saw such a change in the works and wanted to combat it, so she began the Santa Maria nonprofit WonHeart, with a vision of creating more social cohesion and harmony in the community.
At the heart of many of a community’s problems lies discontent, Lutz said.
“Right now, people are feeling hopeless,” she explained. “Everything from what’s going on in the country, to the economy, to our environment and even food, is causing people to be overwhelmed, angry, and sad.”
Those feelings of despair, Lutz said, create separation and isolation within a community. Children pick up those feelings from their parents, too. Lutz explained that despair and isolation often turn inward, leading people to bully themselves. Eventually, those feelings of inner bullying leak outward in interactions with others.
Lutz knows all about how those feelings can be overwhelming. In 2006, Lutz experienced a series of traumatic events: She lost her brother, a relationship ended, and she lost a good friend, all within months. Dealing with those major events all at once took a toll on Lutz.
“I just didn’t want to live anymore,” she said. “I felt like I was just taking up space.”
Then she saw a feature on Oprah about the program Challenge Day, which creates day-long experiential programs that help young people and their communities connect through energetic and interactive activities. Lutz wanted to bring Challenge Day to local schools, and the best way to do so was by creating her own nonprofit.
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While Lutz still dreams of bringing the Challenge Day program to Santa Maria, in the meantime her nonprofit is helping make change locally in any way it can. WonHeart recently held a viewing of the inspiring film I Am, attracting a great turnout and prompting Lutz to schedule another viewing. WonHeart also co-sponsored with Altrusa an event to coincide with International Women’s Day. The event featured five speakers discussing “The 5 Ways to Complete Health—Spiritual, Physical, Financial, Relational and Intellectual.” Lutz said she received such great feedback that WonHeart will hold another similar event and open it up to men as well.
WonHeart doesn’t just focus on adults, Lutz said, noting that children are a big part of the community and investing in helping to foster positive attitudes is a big part of combating bullying and social isolation that many young people feel. From life skills programs to music, the arts, media, and nutrition, Lutz said WonHeart wants to help youth remember the “gold” everyone is born with.
She explained that in order for the community to change for the positive, change needs to happen first in an individual. With WonHeart, she hopes to spark that change.
“We want to introduce programs that have new tools to handle difficult situations instead of relying on what we were taught from our environment—like separation from others—that leads to violence,” she said. “When you know better, you do better. When you do better you live life by example.”
Arts Editor Shelly Cone wins hearts. Contact her at scone@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Mar 22-29, 2012.
