In 2023, the U.S. Surgeon General posted an Advisory on the “healing effects of social connection and community.” You can check it out here.

While we LOVE the idea of social connection and community and the benefits they bring, it takes time and effort. Community also requires putting yourself out there and being vulnerable, which seems….scary.

SOOOO…we wondered if instead of a meaningful social connection, could we start with a first step? Like a simple, low-risk connection. Something that doesn’t require too much time and emotional energy. If we did these types of little things, would they really make a difference?

We conducted a little experiment to see.

Before we go any further and give you the results of the experiment, we need to give you some context.

1. We are ordinary people like you, who have families, jobs, responsibilities in life, etc.

2. When we say a “simple, meaningful connection,” we are NOT talking about random acts of kindness. While we love R.A.O.K. and do them often, “simple human connections” require us to “see” other humans in a meaningful way. Notice we said these interactions are “simple,” not easy.

3. We intentionally set out to connect with humans.

Guess what we found????

1. EVERY.SINGLE.TIME.we gave a simple meaningful interaction, the receiver said it gave them HOPE!

2. MANY TIMES, these simple meaningful connections didn’t cost us a dime…although some times they did. The point is we didn’t HAVE to spend money to be meaningful:)

3. EVERY.SINGLE.TIME.we GAVE a simple meaningful connection, we what GOT was so much greater.

4. When we challenged our friends to start giving simple meaningful connections to others, it strengthened our friendship bond. Check that out…we get to do life better. together!

And that’s what we’re doing now. We’re looking for champions of hope to join us in this meaningful connections challenge, or as we call it, the “iCu” challenge.