Building Community

Frank Sampson’s “Celebration” is displayed in City Club’s Grand Hall 

The very notion of community is paradoxical. On the one hand, almost everyone seems engaged in one, whether it’s to party or attend some grand event. On the other hand, Dr. Vivek Murthy, the U.S. surgeon general, has declared loneliness and isolation to be the No.1 pandemic in America, a phenomenon killing us slowly but surely. 

The answer to this riddle is that community is more of a mindset than a place, which is why many feel lonely even in a crowd. What gives? What is a real community, and why is it so vital to our well-being?

I know of what I speak. As a lone teenage immigrant in a new foreign culture, I experienced long and deep bouts of loneliness and a heart attack to prove it. As a result, I have devoted much time and effort over the decades to build the sort of community I’d be honored to join (apologies to Groucho Marx). 

Here is a quote from Benjamin Franklin to focus our attention on the need for community: “We must, indeed, all hang together or, most assuredly, we shall all hang separately.”

Franklin’s advice is not just some catchy phrase to help power through the American Revolution. A functioning community, you see, must hold in balance the four elements of physical, emotional, intellectual, and spiritual. Regard it as a way of life, one that has been behind Franklin’s American Philosophical Society since its founding in 1743, after which he helped build the great city of Philadelphia and then America.

It is that kind of mindset that has allowed us to hold forth for forty-five years, spending millions of dollars, allowing us to survive recessions, pandemics, floods, and a fire. Now that our infrastructure is sufficiently in place, we are focused on the remaining critical aspects of building our ideal community around our core group of ~300 dedicated members.

So here’s my invitation: starting tonight and for succeeding business nights, we intend to strengthen and grow our community by hosting after-work Cocktail Hour plus a brand new Bar Menu along with scheduled Game Nights and Movie Nights. Please plan to join us, invite guests, see and be seen, make heart connections, and have fun.

Let’s hang together.

— Sina.