For 16 years, Best Day has championed the simple but transformative truth that every story matters—especially the stories of older adults who are too often overlooked.

Your gift today strengthens mental and emotional wellbeing by uplifting older adult voices, bridging generations, and helping us to expand our life-changing storytelling programs in Philadelphia and beyond.

Best Day’s 2026 Goals

In an effort to empower older adults, educate young generations, improve the quality of mental healthcare in our country, by sharing older adult stories with all generations through locally focused programming, in 2026 Best Day will focus on:

1. Sustainable Growth, Scalable Impact

We will launch a Trainer Certification Program, opening an application to the public to find 3 outstanding individuals to receive direct instruction and guided mentorship from our Founder, Benita Cooper (2025 Philadelphia Business Journal Woman of Influence, 2025 SJ Mag Woman of Excellence Award Recipient).
Through a structured and research-backed curriculum, each trainer will learn and put into practice Best Day’s facilitation methods, partnership-building strategies, and leadership techniques.
This pilot will be the first of an annual cycle that extends our model’s impact one city at a time across the country.

2. Strengthening Our Greater Philadelphia Roots

We will launch new storytelling groups in partnership with senior centers and nursing homes in the Greater Philadelphia area.
We will host in-person, hybrid, and virtual Story Pop-Up events to bring the mental health benefits of storytelling to new audiences.
We will establish new relationships with businesses of all sizes, types, and fields by hosting Lunch & Learns to share communication techniques that boost productivity, team building, and intergenerational collaboration.

3. Commitment to Leadership and Advocacy

We will collaborate with Philadelphia and New Jersey academic institutions and area health systems to host an Intergenerational Engagement Summit, bringing key stakeholders together to explore and define social connection solutions and its impact on community health.
Our Founder and Board Members will speak at national conferences to present the impact of our program and highlight the importance of social connection.
We will reactivate the Social Connection Work Group in PA and NJ to unite partners, researchers, and advocates and unite the community around our mission.

Giving Tuesday & End-of-Year Campaign

Help us improve and expand our programs in 2026!