Sometimes community is rooted in place, feeling part of where you are.
It’s the librarians knowing my name and running into friends while we’re checking out books. It’s the cashier at the market asking my little one where her big sister is. It’s my three-year-old having a “usual” at the coffee place.
It’s saying hi to all the other people out walking their dogs or their kids. It’s a quick walk around the block taking twice a long as you intended because you ran into one person and then another and then another.
It’s the shared work of clearing snow and helping those who can’t. It’s meal trains when a baby is born and the neighbor who takes your trash or lets your dog out or ties up your tomatoes when you can’t.
It’s watching a high school senior go off to the prom or a kindergartener get on the bus for the first time—even when neither one is your child.
It’s working together on the playground at the end of the street or the garden/greenhouse at the school. It’s leaving toys in the sandbox for others to play with (and finding them there when you go back) and picking up trash whether it’s yours or not.
It’s traditions like first day of school muffins and our neighborhood egg hunt and the Halloween gathering across the street.
All this is my community, the one grounded in place and people who take care of each other and what they share.
What does community mean to you?
Tell me about your community—one built around people and place or one built around shared experience.
What’s one thing you can do to build or strengthen your community today?
I’ve moved around a lot. Much of my community is online–it staves off the loneliness of arriving in a new place to have a group of friends that I can take around with me in my phone. 😉
In terms of growing some roots, the first thing I like to do–depending on where I move–is go to the library and see what’s happening in the neighbourhood. There’s always something on. I get a card for me and the kids and am really quite happy that there is a place to read, borrow books, run into new neighbours, and chat with friendly, helpful librarians.
Kathleen, I have online communities that I absolutely rely on—such a great resource now. Like you, one of the first things I do in a new place is visit the library and get myself a card!