Since COVID-19 erupted, I've been trying to find the "right" way to be useful. My attempts to help connect my neighborhood in Indianapolis, which I've moved from for now so my family can have childcare down in FL, are proving interminably slow. I can't sew and don't have a sewing machine, and my attempts through a friend's friend to support someone else's sewing campaign has met a dead end. I'm craving things to do with my time beyond reading about how badly this thing is hitting so many people, including communities of color and service workers. So far, the "concrete" help I've found a way to provide to others right now has been through donations to organizations based in the principles of mutual aid, community and individual capacity. I'm glad to have these avenues, but still crave a hands-on way I can give, help, support, and share.

As most often does, one of the answers came about quite organically and from left field, and was something I picked up doing almost without thinking about it -- from an inside urge I couldn't really help.

It began about a month and a half ago when my friend Amy Kedron posted an article she'd just written on Medium about how her experience organizing neighbors in her apartment complex in FL during a hurricane might prove useful in this time of COVID-19. Then more stories started pouring in, and tools, thought pieces, and beautiful visuals that inspired hope, courage, action or laughter (including many hilarious texts from my dear neighbor David across the street in Indy.)

So I did what I have done all my life:  Making lists! And organizing them, re-organizing, prettifying and reorganizing.

Here's the first one I made:

RESOURCES & INSPIRATION for Unleashing Abundance and Collective Care in Times of Crisis

Then I realized I needed one place to put all the amazing visuals I was seeing and put them here:

COVID-19 Visual Inspiration & Humor

And then this list sprang forth, because I wanted to lift up ways that those of us with some material security right now might share that in ways that go as directly as possible to people who are operating on principles of mutual aid, respecting the dignity of capacity of people (including those in need), and community building:

“Solidarity Not Charity” During COVID-19: Ways to Help While Building Community & Power

I had no big plans for these lists when I started them... but since they now exist, I've been sharing them on various channels I have some kind of connection to--and early on I invited my friends on the CommsTeam of the ABCD Institute to be co-creators of the first list. But to my delight, nearly every time I log into the "Resources and Inspiration" list, there are between 5 and 20 people also viewing it! (Yay for Google Docs for this fun, rewarding feature.)

I'm deeply happy to have found one outlet that merges my penchant for obsessively listing things, my love of stories and practical information, and my belief that our capacity to find a way through this critical time--maybe better than we were before? 

And while I still want to find my way into a more direct local flow of mutual aid within my community, perhaps there's a lesson here around trusting that our own assets, our own gifts -- infused with whatever passion makes those gifts feel most natural to give freely in one's spare time (including way after one should be going to bed!) -- is a good starting place for how we might begin to revive community in the bigger picture.

Who knows? This new world is a work in progress. But I feel better going into it with some lists in hand to use and share! And to be giving my gift.

How about you? What has your journey been so far in finding your way to be in community, exchange and contribution in these wild times?

Note: The lists are all crowdsourced so everyone is welcome to add to them too (info on contributing is in each list). 

I'm a young-ish working mother of a 2 year old who works in community development. I'm based in Indianapolis, IN but my job right now focuses on a national project and consists mostly of coaching others remotely around how to build community in their places.

Since my husband and I moved back here to Indianapolis about two years ago, one of my greatest frustrations and longings has been around a need for community in my own neighborhood -- because it's my passion and because, as a new parent, I am feeling first-hand the burden of our culture of isolation and yearn for more relationships of exchange and "mutual delight" in our and our daughter's life. But while I have made efforts to gradually get to know my neighbors and connect us all together, it's been incredibly slow since I find myself unable to find the time and energy -- between work, cooking dinner, cleaning house, caring for our child and keeping up with family -- to put the time into it that I know it needs. So, my sense of palpable isolation has remained.

But miraculously, over the last two weeks the growth of the COVID-19 viral threat has lit a fire under me. Despite new pressures like my husband and I needing to watch our daughter full time while also working (her daycare closed), the energy has just been there for me to get organizing. Below is my story so far... 

I began a couple of weeks ago by researching what other neighborhoods are doing and then reaching out to my neighbors to float the idea of creating some kind of mutual support network for each other to get through this together and especially to make sure our most vulnerable are taken care of. Everyone I talked to said it sounded great, but no one at first stepped up to say they'd help. I was a bit more direct with some Moms I've gotten to know, and they shared candidly that they just didn't have the time or headspace right now with the support their families needed... but two suggested their husbands may be interested. So I asked them. Another couple who recently moved in serves on the neighborhood association board... so I listened to my gut and asked the wife. All said yes!

So, we are currently in the "building" phase of this, but personally for me even this first coming together of energy around a more connected, mutually supportive neighborhood is a huge first step. The urgency, and perhaps the global nature of this pandemic has pushed me to make more direct asks to learn who among those folks I know share my passion, and to be bolder than I may have been otherwise in inviting them to join me to make something real together.

At this point, I've taken the time to speak with each on the phone -- first to check in and see how they're doing -- and then to brainstorm a bit about the idea. I've been mindful not to make this about me, or what kind of structure I think we should use... but to try and open up a space where their own experience and ideas are just as important as mine. I know I cannot and don't want to be "the leader" of this, since i do have a full-time job (and a young child), and it's not something I or anyone is getting paid for. Through these conversations, I've been delighted at the ideas and considerations each person has offered up. One was a suggestion that we split the neighborhood into quadrants and just take on our own quadrant for now so as to not overwhelm ourselves and make this effort more appealing for neighbors... turns out this is something the neighborhood association has already been thinking. 

So I guess I'd call this the "building of a core." We are planning to meet in the next few days on Zoom to brainstorm together and come up with a plan that sounds good to all. So far, each person has agreed we think of this as community building BEYOND the crisis... something we want to keep growing when we're on the other end of it. We also want to find a way of connecting us all that uses technology wisely -- i.e. a platform that most people can access (including our Elders) and that will allow people to talk with and perhaps form collaborations with each other easily while not overwhelming anyone's phone. 

As this small group has been gradually forming, I've simultaneously begun trying to create even smaller structures of communication and exchange with the neighbors MOST immediately around me via a text thread I sent the other day when my husband and I were headed to the grocery store. I was honestly quite nervous about doing it, but in the spirit of boldness and experimentation, I wrote the 5 most immediate neighbors around our house and asked if anyone would like anything from the store (explaining that I'd read this is a good strategy among neighbors so fewer of us need to get exposed to public places.) One neighbor asked to be taken off the thread but in a very nice way... and I thanked him for his honesty and began a new thread, asking everyone to use that one. Everyone thanked me, and one asked me to grab her some dried mango. This same neighbor then offered to do the same for any of us when she goest in to her job at a huge grocery store on Thursdays! This seemed to me like a great connection for us all to have... "someone on the inside!" Another neighbor on the thread who seems to have the gift of neighborhood protectiveness has since been communicating on the thread about things he notices around us that concern him, and as a group we've been troubleshooting each one. One such case was a U-Haul that had been parked just north of us on the street for several days -- an occurrence he noted seems to happen every few months. (I'm NOT much of a "neighborhood watch" type, so I was completely oblivious to this!) As a group, we shared knowledge about this and through this, one neighbor took action and we solved the case -- it had been reserved through U-Haul and never turned in, and the company would come and pick it up ASAP. I was able to update the neighbor who'd been asked to be taken off the list, and he was delighted as well.

We've also been making efforts to hold informal conversations with neighbors as so many of us are out and about these days since our state just passed a "shelter at home" mandate, and many of us were already working from home anyway. It's amazing how many neighbors are walking the streets now! Through our walks and trying to talk to these neighbors we run into, we've been learning a lot and strengthening relationships.

Just yesterday, several of us were out and started chatting about how we are all coping with the situation and what's going on with us. We all stood far apart from each other but were still able to feel connected! We learned that one neighbor just got laid off (he is a contractor for airlines)...  so we promised to keep an ear out and also shared what we've heard about the new government relief package including support for contract workers (since we are both contractors too). We were also able to introduce the couple who lives two doors down with our neighbor David who has lived here for 50+ years, and actually once lived in the house the couple now owns!

Our daughter loves dogs, so when the dog from our other next door neighbor came out to roam their gigantic yard, she insisted that we go say hello to it. I obliged, which took me away from the group conversation... but then led me to see the neighbor who owns that property. We began chatting and sharing all kinds of updates about the virus, including her insights about the local situation since her husband works in the ER. Toward the end of the conversation, this neighbor kindly offered us to come into their large yard anytime we want to let our daughter run around. We told her how amazing that would be, since she loves dogs so much but we don't (yet) have one of our own! We left this conversation moved by her generosity and this delightful new resource we can use as we try to keep our little girl entertained while we watch her full-time (with no access to playgrounds that have been deemed unsafe.)

Finally, as mostly new arrivals in a community that is racially and economically mixed (and gentrifying), one of my priorities -- which the core of connectors each agreed should be our shared priority -- is that any larger effort should be respectful of and in good relationship with those neighbors who have been here for many years and may already be actively connected to one another. None of us knows the best way to do this but it's a question we want to explore together. In my own sense of urgency around this question, I sought out a colleague of mine last week who has been a long-time community builder working for many years alongside the neighbors here, mostly in the southern part of the neighborhood and many of them lower income folks of color. He is an expert at avoiding the many false and harmful assumptions in our country and our community around people of color, and he is a brilliant innovator in and actively challenging these assumptions by focusing his work on shining a light on and finding ways to support and invest in folks' capacities, gifts and contributions to their neighbors' lives. 

Having seen a lot of "white do-gooder" efforts targeting the neighborhood as well as white-led neighborhood groups in action, he encouraged me to simply seek to see and notice how those with fewer means are responding to this crisis and helping each other out. He also named some connectors he knows who are doing this actively each day in this neighborhood. So as I work with the neighbors it's been easiest for me to join forces with in my immediate surrounding, I also plan to reach out to these connectors and learn from them, while trying to find openings and opportunities for us to perhaps bridge these "two neighborhoods" through simple relationship-building, seeing and sharing gifts, and hopefully some wonderful in-person parties, meals and projects once we are on the other side of this pandemic.

For the first time in a long time, I am feeling like a whole person. This crisis has fully activated my passion and need for immediate neighborhood connectedness and to be actively building it around me -- not just "for others" or some theoretical idea of "building community," but also because my life cries out for it every single day. And as the scary, sad and horrific news articles pour in, I feel like in a way I've been vaccinated and am safe from the feelings of powerlessness this kind of news often provokes in one's mind and soul. I see the willingness to do, care and share emerging around me from within my neighbors and I know that, no matter how much any of us may struggle or suffer, we will find a way forward together.

One theme that keeps showing up in the conversations I've been among people neighborhoods, spiritual organizations, nonprofits, government-- is the lack of youth engagement in important local matters. This concern came up again and again when a bunch of us ABCD-ites got together in Chicago a month ago, and this morning I was talking with a colleague about our own experiences as the 'youngest' in certain rooms. The following is a somewhat stream-of-consciousness musing on this topic that was sparked by a song I like very much.

First, this song, which came through my pandora music service just now:

"Handlebars"by Flobots

Have a listen -- and here are some lyrics:

I can ride my bike with no handlebars
No handlebars
No handlebars

Look at me, look at me

hands in the air like it's good to be
ALIVE
and I'm a famous rapper
even when the paths're all crookedy
I can show you how to do-si-do
I can show you how to scratch a record
I can take apart the remote control
And I can almost put it back together

(...)

It starts out sweet, innocent and cocky all at once. It's a kid enamored of his abundant abilities, singing it to the world. A beautiful image of youth.

The confidence grows:

I know how to run a business

And I can make you wanna buy a product
Movers shakers and producers
Me and my friends understand the future
I see the strings that control the systems
I can do anything with no assistance
I can lead a nation with a microphone

With a microphone
With a microphone
I can split the atoms of a molecule
Of a molecule
Of a molecule

Then full volume on dominance, corruption, destruction and egomania--ambition with no morals, power with no reigns:

I can do anything with no permission
I have it all under my command
I can guide a missile by satellite
(...)
and I can end the planet in a holocaust
In a holocaust
In a holocaust
In a holocaust
In a holocaust
In a holocaust

Finally he shifts back--innocent, pure, free:

I can ride my bike with no handlebars
No handle bars

What strikes me first about this song is its skillfulness and its insight.

It's a clever thumbing of the nose at how we're seen by the older world while simultaneously criticizing that world and, I think, nodding to each young person's own potential to give way to that world's frequent disintegration into selfish dominance, manipulation and, in its final equation, full-blown horror.

To me this song communicates what I think a lot of us in Chicago kept arriving at... that the "youth engagement" problem is not a problem of youth not caring, not being ready to do something, and not being capable. It's not even an issue of youth not being ready to do something--many youth ARE doing something--it's just that we don't have the kind of conversations with folks in older generations that let this information slide over. Or if it does slide over, it makes it halfway, and crumbles as our feelings, yearnings, ideas and efforts are appreciated halfway by older people who see us as 'becoming' rather than 'being' full citizens and full people, what we bring is often valued as such. Halfway, with a pat on the head. I know this because I do this to people younger than ME (and hate it!) In this song, the singer is flipping this system saying clearly, "I can teach YOU."
What this song says to me is what's often lost in the conversation about "youth engagement" -- that is, like anyone else, youth want to be viewed for what they bring to the table.Right now, not as who they'll be in five or twenty years and how can everyone mentor them toward greatness. We need to hear what this guy is saying and demonstrating in this song:

- i CAN..., i CAN,... i CAN...

and

"Me and my friends understand the future
I see the strings that control the systems"

To take it a step further, in Chicago a month ago we talked about shifting from a mindset that tries to "involve" people in what WE're doing and instead "involving ourselves" in what the PEOPLE are doing. It's a subtle but mega distinction that I'm still wrestling to wrap my mind around. ...So, the youth who's walking down the street, not at the table--perhaps what's important to find out is what they hold in themselves, or where they're headed. Perhaps the most important question is what the incredible Judith Snow asked during our conversation in Chicago... [paraphrased] "How can I [a non 'youth'] become a person to the young people on my community center's porch that they will speak honestly to? How do I become a person that they trust?"

So, to return to a much-hammered point... maybe it IS all about relationships?

What I see around me these days is a vibrant, pulsating, conscientious, smart, creative and beautiful youth culture. It's in my hometown, it's probably in every town. But who's checking it out? Usually, it's just other youth. There's been inspiring cross-over through the Occupy Movement from what I can tell. Yet in general, I understand that there's barriers and don't mean to sling blame in any direction. I know how freaky and often out-of-the-way difficult it is for older people to go to where the youth are. 

Rather, I see an incredible potential for bridging this divide through places, spaces, groups or conversations that open up the creative capacities of young and older folks in each others' presence. Something is freed up with culture--it comes from deep within and, for that reason, people can find and see each other fresh when it's leaping forth.

How can music bring us together? Maybe what young people are into is not THAT different from their interests than older people think (and vice versa). Or maybe we could have a very entertaining and enlightening exchange of different thing, and realize that beneath is a compelling, redeeming human drive for self-expression and appreciation for creative expression in others.

Here's a couple of examples.

First, These are images from "The Big Eclectic,"an event organized by Van Jazmin, a talented young artist who attends the RIngling College of Art & Design here in Sarasota. Van who blows me away with his energy to bring people together in creativity and support of local artists. He called together talented people of all ilks to perform at Big E's, a little coffee shop much-loved by a diverse crowd for its dedication to community over profits. This event is an example of the good explosion of youth leadership I see.

I'd ask folks worried about the lack of youth involved in their groups or organizations to consider these questions (as I ask them to myself):

Where are youth taking the lead ALREADY in your community, who are acting on what you care about too?

How can you get to know them?

How can you support what they are doing?

Another example of spontaneous community-building across generations, sparked by art, is this scene from Realize Bradenton's ArtSlam this October. A truly amazing event, ArtSlam happened when this innovative organization recognized that it can make a big impact simply by doing what ABCD Faculty member Henry Moore called "Leading by Stepping Back." They made a call to local artists and artist groups to "do their thing" at a huge outdoor event sponsored by a partnership of local arts institutions. It seems they were smart about connecting with young artist--or more likely, both young artists and this organization were smart about connecting with each other--because at least half of the street projects were led by young people. I love this video of my friend Fez igniting freedom on the "dance street" with his killer moves, followed by some nice fire-spinning by my friend Misha of Urban Spiral Dance Company:

So, to summarize:

The Flobots song and the following stories inspired me because:

- They epitomizes the mind-blowing skill, sensitivity, insight and ambition present & overflowing in the youth of today

- They represents something I feel is a powerful doorway for bridging persistent rifts between the generations: CULTURE

Youth engagement is not about "getting youth involved" but about involving ourselves with each other across generations--as humans do naturally, through things that inspire and move them, with curiosity about what the other brings to the table that can be valuable, used, admired and respected RIGHT NOW.

I write this aware that I repeat the mistake of my elders with my juniors, and that to be powerful, my thinking must concentrate on what I can and am willing to do, as a young person, to make this shift (not what others are doing wrong). I'm committed toblurring damaging generational lines

• through my active and unprejudiced enthusiasm for culture that moves me
• by exercising with frequency my power to attend, enjoy, invite others to drink from what humans of all kinds feel moved to create in my vicinity.
• making a point to celebrate great skill and effort that risks being overlooked, especially that of my age-peers.

...And, I'll do my best not to get mad when I feel myself being seen or treated as 'less than' by elders After all, I DON'T ACTUALLY know everything...

I STILL can't ride a bike with no handlebars.