A new study says the happiest people are in small towns and rural areas, according to the Washington Post. Among the reasons cited, people in small towns and rural areas are more likely to have a “sense of belonging” in their communities compared to people in urban areas.

That community feeling has been on full display in Newberry this spring with festivals, events, fundraisers and celebrations. Just in the last two weeks in Newberry, numerous volunteers, churches and organizations raised over $73,000 at the 23rd annual Relay for Life event, and money is still being raised. The Taste of Newberry was a big success and delicious. The Newberry Young Professionals, which continues to grow and be active, hosted their first gala with a large crowd attending. Newberry Elementary honored dozens of volunteers at a dinner where speaker Sheila J. Brown saluted the volunteers with a stirring speech.

The American Legion will hold the Memorial Day ceremony for the community Sunday at 4 p.m. at Community Hall. The city PRT department has a full menu of summer activities, including a wide selection of art classes at the Newberry Art Center, the “Rec Mobile” with youth games at city parks weekday mornings, and tennis at the Oakland Tennis Center. On June 8 the city will show the blockbuster movie Black Panther at Memorial Park at sunset.

Downtown, Cayce Shirey recently opened Lucy’s, a ladies boutique selling clothing, shoes and accessories. Her store is at 1215 Main at the corner of Main and College. At Newberry College, Chick-Fil-A is open this summer Monday-Friday 11 a.m.-6 p.m. to give more availability to the Newberry community (closed Memorial Day).

In the city’s utility system improvements, on Nance Street the first phase of the new water and wastewater lines are near completion. Repaving of the right lane and portions of the median will begin within the next few weeks. The second phase of the water line improvements on Nance St. will be from Pope Street to Kendall Road and will begin late summer.

The SCDOT will repave Main Street from CVS to Hillbrook Lane in the next year. Beneath that road, the city has an important water line that is due for replacement in a few years. The city will move up that replacement project and put in a new water line before the repaving.

Finally, the city celebrated its staff this week with Employee Appreciation Week. I frequently hear praise of city staff, be it a policeman or fireman going the extra mile, a utility worker getting power, water or wastewater service restored quickly after a storm or outage, a PRT staffer putting on a successful event, public works staffers keeping streets safe and clean, or numerous city staffers helping solve citizen problems. Thanks to all city staff for the outstanding work they do.

Thank you for supporting Newberry businesses and events.

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Foster Senn

Contributing Columnist

Foster Senn is the mayor of Newberry. His columns appear periodically in The Newberry Observer.