How would you improve your community?
Back in August, I started working at the local community college in a department that focuses on classes that usually older adults take for self-enrichment and not for a degree. I was only at the job for about a month when I got an invite from the associate vice president of my department. She invited me to attend something called a “Power Breakfast”. Apparently, the school president, a few of the associate vice presidents, and some deans from various departments were invited. I’m not a dean but I was invited anyway. I was sort of flabbergasted at the invite. I didn’t know what this event was and why I was asked to attend. It was going to be held at the botanical gardens. And as it turns out, we were just one table of “powerful” people.
There ended up being about 30 tables of people at this event. Each table sat a group from various businesses and organizations in the community. I remember the public school system had a table. I can’t quite remember who the other attendees were but it seemed to be a who’s who of the community. As I sat at the table eating my breakfast, I observed a great deal of hand-shaking and networking going on.
The main event was a panel discussion. I believe one of the local independent newspapers had an employee as the moderator. The guest speakers included the CEO of the botanical garden. I actually knew him because I had interviewed for a job there before I took the job at the community college. Long story short, I applied to be one of the people who taught the school kids when they came for field trips, but when the CEO interviewed me and discovered all of my administration experience, he wanted to hire me to do a lot of admin stuff. Too bad the salary he offered was no better than what I could make at any local fast food restaurant. But I digress. There was also the CEO of the local regional theater, the CEO of the symphony orchestra, and the CEO of the arts council. All CEOs, all powerful people, all there to tell us about the amazing things they are doing to promote the arts in the community.
And as I sat and listened to this discussion, hearing these people talk about how important it is to have engagement from the community in all of their arts programs and events, I got a little irritated at the whole display.
Just the week prior, I had been driving down a very busy street in my city. One of those five or six lane roads with a turning lane down the middle and a whole bunch of traffic lights along the way. In the turning lane near one of the intersections, there was a man without a shirt waving a white piece of cloth above his head. He was wandering around and appeared to be yelling something. It was obvious that he was in some sort of distress.
Later that evening, I saw on the Watch Out! Facebook page for my county that someone had posted a video of the man. So many of the comments were from people who had also seen him and saw that the police were tending to him. They also said that he was clearly having a mental health issue and they hope he gets the help he needs because in this city, there’s not much help available. There was a whole string of comments that agreed with the thought that mental health resources aren’t available to the people who need it.
I am well aware of this. The botanical garden where I was eating breakfast that day is only about 2 or 3 miles down from the school where I had previously worked. It’s also in the general downtown area of the city where there is a large homeless population. Every day I saw people walking on the sidewalks around the school that were clearly unhoused and weren’t well. I myself had had to call the police numerous times to have them escort a person off our property because the kids were either about to be arriving to school or were already there.
The problem has persisted, if not gotten worse. And there I sat, in a room full of people listening to even more powerful people talking about how the arts are so needed in our community. I don’t disagree with that at all. The arts are a very important part of any society. But I had to wonder, when is the “power breakfast” going to be held to talk about what’s being done to help people like that man I saw in the middle of the road waving a white piece of cloth? It was almost like he was waving a white flag of surrender. Where are the programs to help him? Who’s advocating for resources to help other people like him? As I thought about him in that moment, sitting at a table surrounded by the “higher ups” of my school and so many other businesses in my area, I almost felt like I was in the wrong place. I shouldn’t be here, I should be out there helping people who have difficulty helping themselves. Of course, I almost immediately felt like I couldn’t help. I don’t have any kind of formal training or education in the field of social work or sociology or any area that could be of use to the need in my community. Perhaps that’s part of why I started writing so much about my own mental health. I was fortunate enough to have a support system that was able to help me through crisis moments like that man was having. Not everybody is so lucky.
I don’t know what I can do to improve my community at this moment. I know what needs to be improved and maybe there will come a day when I have the time to volunteer or just in general do something. Anything. To assist the people who I know are doing what they can to help the people who are unhoused, who need mental health care and don’t have the means to get it, or just need some kind of help that they are having trouble finding.
My community is not unique. I am certain every community has a population with needs much like mine. It’s not always going to be as obvious as a man in the middle of the road crying out for help. I hope all of our eyes and ears are open wide enough to hear the cries when they are much more subtle and quiet.
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