Hannah Morris, a State College mom of two, uses the social media account Happy Valley Hannah to highlight places and events around State College, from coffee shops and restaurants to sporting and music events.
Morris, a Bradford native, says she started by simply picking up her camera while she was exploring the State College area with her children.
“I was just taking my kids to all of the different things around town, and I was taking pictures of them kind of for friends and family. And then my good friend, who’s a photographer, she was like, ‘You know, we don’t have any hyper local content creators here doing this.’ And she was like, ‘You’re already doing all these things, you’re just not marketing it,’” Morris said.
Morris currently has 15,000 followers on Instagram and had 1.3 million views in the last month. Morris says she was able to build the account with hard work and lots of support from the community.
“I think that we’re in this smart community where people want to see you succeed and they’ll really rally behind you. I think that was a big part of it,” Morris said.
She recently started selling "Happiest Valley" merchandise.
Morris said it’s her positivity that draws followers to her account. She hopes her page offers people a break from the negative side of the internet.
“I’m gonna focus on the good things because I just think that we all need more of that in our lives. So I’m just trying to provide information in a nice way that’s not going to leave you stressed out from scrolling the internet,” Morris said.
Morris says no matter how much her account grows, Happy Valley will always be at the heart of it.