Now more than ever is the need to foster and strengthen local social connections to create a sense of belonging and community, and to create easily accessible and affordable opportunities for people to enrich their lives through connections they might not otherwise make. This week’s EarthChat focuses on Community (or Neighbourhood Houses) which profoundly contribute to the overall strength and resilience of local communities by fostering social connections and offering learning and recreational opportunities. Community Houses facilitate community engagement for people of all ages and backgrounds enabling a sense of belonging - a much needed antidote to social isolation in these times - and generally supporting good community mental health.Our focus is the Seymour and District Community House who since 1981 have been providing access to resources and information, such as job training, ‘occasional childcare program’, support for people with disabilities, and more recently a food share program, and a community garden which is lovingly tended by children from the childcare program.Manager, Krystal Bolejko, (the one paid worker), and President of SDCH’s volunteer Board, Larissa Lambert, fill us in about the House’s offerings, and what inspires them to do this work, along with their exciting future plans to further enrich the offerings already available to the Seymour and District Community.