Building communities through leisure: Citizen participation in a healthy communities initiative

This paper reports on an in-depth qualitative study of the experience of citizen participation as a leisure pursuit. Participants were involved with a Healthy Communities initiative. Findings indicated citizen participation lead to benefits associated with serious leisure and community building. Five themes reflected benefits citizens identified from their involvement with healthy communities; these were (a) learning and developing new skills, (b) becoming more vocal, (c) balance and renewal, (d) group accomplishment and ability to influence change, and (e) development of community. Participants involved in the visioning process felt greater overall benefit from their participation than those who had not been part of the original visioning exercise. Findings suggest significant implications related to self-determined directions for citizen participation and the rejuvenation of community through leisure.