by: Mary Katherine Wildeman (The Post and Courier)
It was 2009, the recession was in full swing, and the small, average town of Albert Lea, Minn., needed something to rally around.
The town was approached in the late fall with an interesting pitch from a yet-to-be-named company that promised to steer Albert Lea toward the kind of happiness and vitality that had been identified among people in places like Okinawa, Japan, and Loma Linda, Calif.
"We had nothing to lose," said Ellen Kehr, the project's leader in Albert Lea. "For the community, it was a fun thing to concentrate on. It was exciting when nothing was really very exciting that year."
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