Federal Way resident Nick Wilson reads the news and stays informed, and one of his conclusions, in light of current events, is people need to appreciate their friends a lot more.

That belief and a little digging some time ago turned into Friendship Day, a “holiday” dreamt up in the 1920s as a way to sell greeting cards. The day was largely ignored at the time, but Wilson was sold on a modern version of the idea coming to his home city, especially after the difficult year it has been enduring.

“This needs to come back in this community, especially with everything that’s been going on,” Wilson said.

The idea had been planted in the past, and Wilson said a friend of his, who’s now deceased, told him, “Man, that’s a really great idea. But good luck getting anyone to ‘get it.'”

It took Wilson attending three recent Federal Way City Council meetings, having two long conversations with Federal Way Mayor Jim Ferrell, getting loads of community help and taking a crash course in event planning to bring it all together, but here it is: Friendship Day will have an organized celebration on Sunday, Aug. 7, at Town Square Park from 3-6 p.m.

The mayor and City Council issued a proclamation on July 19 that the second Sunday in August, the original Friendship Day date, would henceforth be known as Friendship Day in Federal Way. And while that was the end of the city’s official involvement in Friendship Day 2016, it piqued the interest of Councilwoman Susan Honda.

Honda, as a citizen and not a councilmember, and community activist Sharry Edwards “got it” and started helping Wilson pull an event together on short notice. They discovered yellow roses represented friendship and found a sponsor to donate them. In keeping with the goal of having the city’s inaugural Friendship Day be an informal affair, they opted to serve ice cream on Sunday and found a donor for that too. Flyers were made pro bono, the city offered to let Town Square Park get used without cost, and local Kiwanians offered to kick in some funds – an offer that became a material donation after Honda, Edwards and Wilson decided accepting money would defeat the purpose.

All Wilson wants out of Sunday’s celebration is for “people to start caring more – they need to care more about the people around them besides their family.”

For others, the holiday is not only a pleasant way to get people to come together but also something that can be uniquely Federal Way.

“It doesn’t seem like any other cities around here or in the state really have this,” Honda said.