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Antonia Malchik's avatar

I had to kind of laugh at myself here, because my instant response to this was remembering how many years I’ve tried to cut back on these small things. Which might sound odd, but I’m: incredibly introverted while being dedicated to community in so many ways, including as a form of citizenship that I wish many more people would understand the need for; and a person who consistently brings soup to a friend who’s sick or other things for someone going through trauma and always, always follows through on what I’ve committed to no matter how draining I’ve found them. I am constantly out of time and overcommitted and sacrificing a lot of my own needs.

The more people who do these small things, though, the more it all gets spread out in the community and the less pressure there is on a few people who always show up. AND it builds community bonds, social capital, and healthy interdependence.

My strategy has been to choose two areas I really care about (for me it’s walking and education) and do things that serve those. Show up at school board meetings now and then (this is something I’ve let slide during Covid, but I also pair up with some other people and we trade off), find ways to talk to city staff or city council about missing or impassable sidewalks, play math games with elementary school kids, try to build momentum around creating a community where kids can walk and bike to school safely (this seems to be taking the rest of my life). And just be there for people.

I keep trying and failing and trying to cut back. But one thing I’ve learned is how much time and showing-up-ness it takes to make change in a community, or make things happen. It’s very inefficient while also building connection. Maybe the more people who can give these things a tiny bit of time, the more things can shift for the better.

Going for walks with people is never a bad move, IMHO!

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Laura C's avatar

I have one that I will not need help or support on because it's going to happen. In a word, it's stairs.

As I've mentioned a couple times, I live in a cohousing community. Well, starting probably next month, our single elevator will be being replaced, a seven-week process during which all of the most elderly and frail people who live in the elevator building part of the complex (where I also live) will be needing a lot of help just doing stuff like getting groceries or mail up to their front doors. And I'm right here and work from home. Our community is organizing more than an ad hoc call your neighbor, but outside of the scheduled times when people will be available to do that stuff, I would expect to be getting a lot of calls for help, as I have during the recent elevator outages leading up to the replacement project.

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