Tomorrow is our one-year anniversary!
We are social creatures. COVID has made gaping weaknesses in our society clear. It is a time where it becomes harder to engage with families, friends, and our neighbors. Where we feel cut off and alone. When social organizations and the government feel distant it really cuts to the core of our communities.
We are a civically-minded community. COVID and the social polarization that it has made worse has exacerbated gaping weaknesses in our society that are now impossible to ignore. It is a time where it becomes harder to engage with families, friends, and our neighbors. All of us to some degree feel cut off and isolated. Social Organizations and government don’t feel responsive or accessible. We were failed on so many levels. Don’t let that disillusion you. You are the change that can turn the tide.
Don’t think that things are going the right way in society, I encourage you to run for something, to start something, to go out and be the change you want to see. That is what I did when I started this group. It’s been hard for me, keeping this community together, keeping it out of the uncivil fray of our nation's politics, keeping my head up when people question my commitment to the community. I do what I do because it makes a difference to others and in turn, that means the world to me. That is all that matters. Never listen to voices that make you question yourself. You know what is best for you.
Dane County Neighbors is part of an effort to ameliorate some of the suffering and division in our community. It is a poor substitute. We don't know when this is going to end, but we need to be ready to remain here for each other for the duration. We need to be ready to stand up and work together to rebuild when the time comes. We can't let all of this suffering have been in vain. I don't know what we will do or how, but I know that we will rebuild, we will recover and we will overcome one of the greatest crises in our history.
I leave you with this, soon you will decide what you want our post covid community to look like. You will decide if this group and projects like it become one-offs that were temporary salves for the ills of society. That may be what happens. I hope it doesn't, but it might. You will decide if the infrastructure we have built will remain central to the work we have tried to do for the past months in bringing our community together is left as just a footnote or if it endures.
It's your choice. We built this group not me or any other individual. We not me!
Paulo
Well said, Paulo.