Where We Gather: Music, Friendship, and Community

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Welcome to Haven 444, our community podcast. Every community has gathering places. Some gather around music. Some gather around friendship. Some gather around shared interests and activities. But one thing is true. People gather simply because they want to be together. They want a sense of community. This week we spent time in several different corners of Lynnhaven. At first glance, they seemed like completely different events. A summer concert, a visit to the senior center, a community sports giveaway. But the more time we spent listening, the more we realized they all shared something in common. They were places where people came together, shared their experiences, shared their lives. Families unfolded lawn chairs, friends caught up on the week's news, children ran and played while music drifted across the park. For a few hours, neighbors enjoy being together.

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My name is Martina.

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I'm liking it today, especially because my friend came from Atlanta to visit.

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Hi, my name is Gregory Spiels. Um just out here enjoying the common stuff, spending time with the family. And um, I advise anybody if you have free time, come on out and check it out. It's really good time for the family. Good event, good environment.

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And we're having a great time, great music, and great people.

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One of the things that makes a community special isn't just its buildings or parks, it's the opportunities people have to connect with each other. Earlier this week, we stopped by the Lynnhaven Senior Center. Now, despite the name, what we found wasn't really about age. Not at all. It was about friendship, it was about staying active, it was about having a place to belong. And perhaps most importantly, it was about people continuing to show up for each other.

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My name is Stephen Petrie, and we've been coming here for about 10 years, my wife and I. We do line dancing and sometimes aerobics, and they have meals for us and books and things to do. We just love coming over here to exercise. They have a lot of new songs. The songs that I'm used to or they don't do anymore. So, you know, I'm 82 years old, still enjoying the dancing and having fun here. Thank you so much for allowing us to do this.

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My name is Livelle Stevens, and I've been coming probably for about six and a year. Um I have learned a lot, and and I've learned also that the line dancing classes is not only good physical, it's mental. Well, in order to stay in any form, um, you have to know the steps and you have to know the basic steps first, which Connie has given many, many, many classes on the basic steps. So the people coming in off of the basic will know what to do, and it doesn't scare them to do that. And after a while, they're just right like the rest of us. They're just up there dancing with their little heart out, you know. They just love it. You know, like I was saying, it's not like you're learning something new. You learn the basic steps and take off and go and have a blast.

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My name is Deborah Scales. I have been coming here to the Senior Center for probably about two or three years. I do the cherubics, I do line dancing, and I do puzzles, and I have learned to play um hand, knee, and foot. So now I come play. Um, I haven't found anybody to play euchre with. I love to play euchre and nobody plays that down south. But other than that, I could teach somebody, I guess. And I do agree, it's very good for your balance, for your brain, and just the socialization. Got friends.

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I'm Bonnie Petrie. My husband said it all. But I line dance. We started line dancing when we wintered in Texas. We traveled a lot, and so we enjoy the lessons here, even though we have to drive from the beach.

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Hi, my name is Julianne Mayo. I am retired now as of one and a half weeks. So I just started line dancing here uh in Lynn Haven. I live in Lynn Haven and I heard about this place, and I came up last year, and I danced in Cincinnati, where I'm from, for 10 years before that. And I taught dancing, I taught ballroom, and I taught jazz tap and ballet. And I I love dancing. I mean, it's just part of my life, and I'm happy when I'm doing it.

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My name is Linda Lazuca. I'm originally from Nashville, so I picked up line dancing as soon as I got into town. I was a pharmacist before that, and now I'm the secretary of the organization. We encourage people to come to line dancing because it's good physical exercise, but it's also good mental exercise for everybody too. And we have a camaraderie here and a friendship and a fellowship as well. So everybody really seems to enjoy it, and we're growing leaps and bounds.

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My name's Connie Newton. I have been with the Senior Center since 2015. I retired teaching and then was able to come here. This is my second term as president. The commitment of each volunteer taking the lead in chair aerobics bridge. They go in there, you know, and Faye is always here. She lives closer and she picks up the bread from public. Freddie lives down the road and he's my right-hand man. Now, Freddie will play cards if they don't have enough people. They only have three, he'll sit in until then. Card players play hand-in-foot. And then we have a dominoes, and then we have the lunch and learns. That's when we get somebody from the community to come in. And these last two weeks, three weeks, we've gotten people coming in. And I just got six new membership forms today. We went to um Atmore for gambling. Atmore, Alabama. Um, the lady approached us and um they were setting up a trip, so we put the paper out there and we got enough, and I went. I I had the best, I just had the best time. Just really a lot of fun, and we were all on that bus and singing and carrying on. And we had 42, 45, something like that. And it gets them taking care of each other, keeping an eye on each other. There's always that camaraderie.

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In a time when so much of life happens through screens, places like this, they matter a lot. And it's one of the proudest things that we have about calling Lynn Haven home. That sense of community runs deep and the connections ring true. They remind us that community is built face to face, conversation by conversation, friendship by friendship. Our final stop was Play It Forward, a community event helping local families prepare for youth sports. Events like these are easy to appreciate because their purpose is so clear. Volunteers donate their time, organizations offer resources, sponsors step forward to help, and families receive support that makes participation possible. It's another example of what can happen when people decide to invest in one another.

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Hey, I'm Corey Wood, and we're out at Kinsall Park at Play It Forward events. We're having hot dogs for free, EKGs, uh physicals for our kids. We're just having such a great day.

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Hi, I'm Robin Schader. I'm the director of the Bay County Library, and we're happy to be out here at Play It Forward at Kinsall Park. We're giving away free books, we're letting kids play games, and having a great time.

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As we visited these different events throughout the week, we kept coming back to the same thought. Community doesn't happen by accident. It happens because people show up. They show up for concerts, they show up for activities, they show up for neighbors, they show up for children, they show up to volunteer, they show up to participate. And over time, all those small moments create something bigger than any one event. They create a sense of belonging, and they permeate this place with that very sense that says, I'm home. I found my home. So whether it is music in the park, friends gathering, volunteers helping local families. This week offered a simple reminder of what makes Lynn Haven so special. Not just the places themselves or the events, but the people who fill them. The people who continue to gather, connect, and invest in one another. Thank you for joining us for another episode of Haven 444. We look forward to seeing you at the next event and around the community really soon. Our city, our story.