Our History

Our Story… So Far

Armed with just pen and paper, Harvard-trained architect Benita Cooper started the first Best Day of My Life So Far storytelling group in 2009 as a six-week lunchtime volunteering project. Inspired by her grandmother’s friendship, which began with a single phone call, Benita Cooper asked Philadelphia Senior Center to borrow a small table for an hour a week. Every Thursday during her lunch break, she showed up with pen, paper and an open heart.
 
Older neighbors told her stories that contained their deepest hopes, dreams and fears; younger neighbors showed up to listen along. Afterwards, Benita shared the stories and her reflections on a blog to invite younger people near and far to join the conversation. Originally intended to last six weeks, the group quickly became a tightknit family, and continues meeting to this day, bringing together hundreds of participants and volunteers, and counting.
 
Benita’s leadership and impact has been recognized with official legislative certificates from two State Senates: the PA Senate, with PA being the state where Best Day began; and the NJ Senate, with NJ being the state where she now lives. The PA Senate says that under her leadership, The Best Day of My Life So Far demonstrates “the highest standards of service” and contributes “in a meaningful way toward a better and more productive society.” The NJ Senate describes her as a “woman of strong character and fortitude” with a “meritorious record of excellence within all the spheres of her life and work.”
 
Benita is also a recent recipient of Philadelphia Business Journal’s prestigious Minority Business Leader Award. In addition, Benita is often featured in the local and regional press. ABC TV Network, which has spotlighted our organization’s impact through the years with two different program segments, introduced Benita with these words, “We often hear that one person can make a difference. Today we introduce you to one such person.” See more of our press and awards.
 
From a little group huddled around a table at a local senior center, we have grown into a true community. Within ten years years, The Best Day of My Life So Far trained over 300 volunteers, and impacted the lives of thousands of older adults and younger listeners nationwide, through 26 sites for our signature storytelling group program, 17 “Story Pop-Up” community events, and 10 “Story Cure” professional development programs.
 
In 2017, we packaged our exclusive, trademarked content into a powerful digital toolbox. This toolbox, carefully distributed through proper partnerships and city-focused programming, allows our methods to scale nationwide. In 2019, our 10th anniversary, we brought our training and programming to a greater audience with partnerships in 10 cities, and built out our internal capacity to ensure that we will be around for the next decades to come. Our program partners ranged from colleges, to senior centers, nursing homes to large-scale care networks.
 
In 2020, with the country and world facing massive health, economic and social crises, “isolation” suddenly became a household word and intergenerational experience. Best Day took virtual engagement to the next level, and strengthened our fight to solve it. We expanded all of our core programs to include robust virtual options, while creating new programs and initiatives to respond to our country’s evolving and growing needs for human re-connection.
 
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Our Founder’s Story

I loved talking with my grandma. was slow to start talking to her, and even slower to admit that I loved – or no, more than that, that I needed – our little conversations. Two weeks before I turned 26, in the summer of 2006, I thought I would call her just to say hello. Had never done that before.

 

She lived quietly and simply in Seattle, where I grew up since the age of 12 and attended college, but I had trailed away, first for study abroad trips in Mexico, Italy and Chile, then grad school in Boston, then marriage and a career as an architect in Philadelphia. We had nothing in common – or so I thought. I thought we would run out of things to say after a few minutes of comparing the weather on the opposite coasts. Instead, we stayed on the phone for almost an hour. I still remember the warmth on my ear from the phone. Before the call, I had never felt farther away from her; after the call, I had never felt closer.

 

At the end, I said our family must be amazed by her stories. “No one knows any of this,” she said. “No one knows because no one asks.” She told me I was silly for finding her special. When I asked whether I could call her back regularly to hear more stories, she burst into the happiest laugh I had ever heard. If I were to give the sound a name, the name would be, “The Best Day of My Life So Far.” The best part was, not only did I know that was how she felt, in my heart, I felt the same way too.

 

During our phone calls, she told me story after story from her past; I would listen – I mean, really listen – because my Chinese is rusty from leaving Hong Kong at age 12. Her stories transported me from my life in downtown Philadelphia, to the Chinese village where she was born, the budding city of Hong Kong where she survived a world war and raised eleven children, and her suburban home in Seattle. Traveling across time and geography with her, I learned about her hopes, dreams, and fears – and started to discover my own.

 

In 2008, with the country in recession, I looked around me and saw many people depressed over the loss of money and jobs. But my deepening friendship with my grandma had shown me a small cross-cultural, cross-generational truth: in life, it is relationships, not things, not money, which matter the most – and stories may just be the most powerful key to genuine relationships. I needed to share this secret with other people, old and young.

 

I approached the Philadelphia Senior Center, near where I lived, with the idea of a storytelling and writing workshop. They had no room to spare, so I worked it out with the director to borrow a staff member’s basement office during his lunch hour every Thursday, for just six weeks. Our first session was September 24, 2009. Soon, the older adults started calling our sessions “Partytime”. Besides showing up to laugh and cry with this marvelous cocoon of eager storytellers every week, I started a blog to share their stories and reflect on what happened during our partytime.

 

By October 15, my older buds timidly asked that I continue the group beyond the initially intended six weeks. Without the pause of a breath, I said, “YES!” Amazed by how much happier, stronger and more confident our group participants had become in just a matter of weeks, the director and staff member agreed to let us keep using the space.

 

Meanwhile, behind the scenes, a quiet miracle began to happen. More and more readers began accessing my older buds’ stories online. Blog readers began sending me moving emails to say how much the stories – and the storytellers’ transformations – have inspired them to live fuller lives or to reach out to their aging parents or grandparents. Some even offered to help me transcribe all the wonderful stories for the blog. A virtual community of younger people began to form, inspired by the stories OUR older buds have to tell…

 

That little blog was the start of this website, which has brought you and me together here, right now, today! And that little group in the basement was the start of our national network of storytelling groups, community events and professional development curriculum. Even as our organization expanded, I still called my grandma every other night. She and I just loved watching The Best Day of My Life So Far spirit spread to so many people. Every phone call made it the best day of my life so far, all over again. I hope that reading our older buds’ stories – which you can receive by following us on social media (Facebook + Instagram @bestdayofmylifesofar, Twitter @bestdaysofar) and subscribing to our newsletter HERE– gives you that feeling too.

 

My grandma’s physical voice gave birth to Best Day, and guided its growth for almost ten years. She smiled until her last day on earth. The life lessons from her stories and the memories of the moments we shared will stay with me forever. And her positive, life-loving, people-loving spirit will always be the guiding force that breathes life to our organization.

 

It means so much to me that you are here. Thank you for reading my story. If you would like to read even more, you can check out one more story HERE written by my younger self, which I rediscovered after that very first phone call and that very first storytelling group.

 

All my best,
Benita Cooper
Founder and President
The Best Day of My Life So Far
benita@bestdayofmylifesofar.org