When I think about community, I automatically think of my childhood. Born and raised on the west side of Madison in a low-income neighborhood, community and family were everything to me.
If you needed a last-minute babysitter for your kids, a ride to the grocery store, a shoulder to cry on, or even a cup of sugar! You’d get what you needed from your neighbors. The mothers of our community truly took care of each other. It was an unspoken rule. No one ever went without. Everyone cared for one another with love and compassion and most of all understanding.
As a kid, there was nothing I could do without one of the mothers in the community seeing me and reporting back to my mom! They all kept caring and concerned eyes on the children in the neighborhood and kept us safe and in line! This didn’t stop our fun though. We would spend hours outside after school riding our bikes outside in huge groups! Sometimes up to 20 kids! The neighborhood BBQs and Water fights are some of my favorite summertime memories.
The sense of comfort and care that a neighbor can bring is still to this day unmatched. To know that you have an entire community standing behind you is an amazing feeling and because of the way I grew up, I vowed as an adult to always help someone in need when I can.
Not all of us grow up with the luxury of having the financial support to back us up when we were in need or had a crisis going on, we had the strength and love of our neighbors.
When I was 20 years old still living at home with my mom and 7 months pregnant with my 1st child. A mom and her 2 kids fleeing a domestic violence situation ended up in our neighborhood. The youngest child she had with her was only 4 months old. I remember a few women in our community bringing her to our home to meet my mother Janet House, a community organizer and extremely resourceful, well-respected member of the community. The woman had cuts and bruises all over her and the kids hadn’t slept ate or bathed in days. My mom grabbed her hand and led her into our living room. She gave that woman the biggest hug and whispered to her “You're okay now, we gone make sure you and your babies leave here with everything y’all need”. The lady burst into tears. My mom gave me one look and that’s all it took! I jumped right into action and got the baby out of its car seat and began to care for the child. Since I was expecting a baby of my own, I already had diapers and wipes and clothes that the baby could wear. I gave the baby a nice warm bath, changed the baby into some fresh clothes, and made her a bottle while my mom helped the young lady who was brought to our house.
Doing all of these things for complete strangers was like second nature to me. I was always taught that no matter how little or how much a person had, race, sex, or religion, show love and help to the best of my abilities!
Later on, that week my mom secured shelter and other resources for the woman and her children. I don’t know where they are today, but I hope they are in a better position, I hope they are thriving in every area of their lives, happy, healthy, and safe.
In my eyes that is what community is! That is how you're supposed to treat people. Even though we weren’t the richest family, anytime anyone knocked on our door we gave, and we helped and we cared, so did a lot of the other families in the neighborhood that I grew up in.
Dane county neighbors helping neighbors gives me this feeling. Every time I come across a post where someone is in need, and I see hundreds of comments from complete strangers helping one another and offering words of encouragement and resources and help my heart is filled with joy. I am proud. I hope that this group continues to grow and continues to be a blessing to those in need.