since 1935 | #justbeyourself

Volume 6 | Issue 6 | June 2023
Our Mission: Providing financial solutions for every stage of life.

Dear Valued Member,

Have you heard the Blue Zones buzz? It’s getting louder and rapidly becoming a chorus of voices across the Jacksonville community, joining together to create a healthier, more connected city where people live longer, better lives.

The Blue Zones Project is a nationwide initiative that’s already helping improve the quality of life in more than 70 North American cities by drawing on lessons from communities around the world where residents are documented to be healthier, happier and longer-lived. You may recall that I mentioned in my December letter that Blue Zones was coming to Jacksonville and that our credit union was taking a leadership role. I said you would be hearing more about the project in the year ahead, and I’m excited to report that time has arrived.

Blue Zones Project Jacksonville will hold a festive community kickoff event Saturday, June 3, at the Jacksonville Fairgrounds, and I hope you’ll come out to share in the fun and learn more about Blue Zones and the many small steps you can take toward better overall well-being. The free event will take place from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. with live demonstrations, vendors, food trucks, activities and music.

The Community First team will be there, too, operating a booth where you’ll have a chance to participate in a friendly competition we’re calling “Financial Feud,” which is designed to recreate the excitement of a TV game show. In addition to the fun of the competition, you’ll be able to engage with our game show hosts and financial wellness specialists to get answers to your financial questions.

Our booth will be one of many set up by prominent organizations participating in Blues Zones Project Jacksonville. Project partners in addition to Community First include the City of Jacksonville, United Way of Northeast Florida, Baptist Health, Brooks Rehabilitation, Florida Blue, Jacksonville Jaguars Foundation, Jacksonville University, Jessie Ball Dupont Fund, Mayo Clinic and University of Florida Health.

You might notice that the coalition includes many health care organizations, and that’s not surprising. The Blue Zones Project began as a study of existing healthy communities around the world and the factors that contributed to their residents’ longevity. Their common threads were identified and woven into a blueprint for helping other communities make beneficial changes to their environment, policy and social networks. The idea is to create communities where people find it easier to make healthy choices, like biking to complete errands or having better access to locally grown fruits and vegetables.

Here at Community First, we saw immediately how closely the Blue Zones Project aligned with our purpose, which is to empower people to live their best lives. We also felt that we had something to contribute that wasn’t already part of the initiative — the financial component of overall well-being. Everyone who manages a budget knows that a sense of financial security goes a long way in reducing stress and improving quality of life.

To bring that element into Blue Zones, we are pioneering a new component for improving financial well-being for the entire community by coupling our credit union’s innovative financial programs and tools with the Blue Zones systems approach to well-being. Our goal is to create community-wide policies and programs — together with non-profits, faith-based groups and elected officials — that help improve financial well-being for everyone in Duval County. We hope to show employers how they can embed financial wellness into their policies and best practices, to help expand financial literacy in schools and workplaces, and to encourage other businesses to participate in Blue Zones Project Jacksonville. Ultimately, we’re hoping that the model we develop here can become part of the Blue Zones Project approach in other communities as well.

Those are lofty goals, and we fully expect to get there. But the real beauty of Blue Zones lies not in grand designs but in taking small steps toward grand results. There are many things we can do as a community, working cooperatively, to give everyone better opportunities to make healthy choices in their lives. And, like every journey, they begin by taking the first step.

I hope you’ll take your first step to supporting the Blues Zones Project initiative in Jacksonville by attending the June 3 kickoff at the Fairgrounds. Be sure to stop by our booth to show your pride in being a Community First member. ■