We have an obligation to build community together

THE OLYMPIAN | • Published June 24, 2009

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As Americans our value of independence has been overrated.

It is clear to me that for families to flourish and children to succeed we need to engage in a culture of interdependence, building community on each person’s strengths and the possibility that each new situation brings.

The Center for Social Policy has identified five protective factors that strengthen families: parent resilience, social connections, knowledge of child development, concrete support in times of need and social emotional competence of children.

The Child Care Action Council along with several other agencies work to enhance all of these factors for families, but the one I think everyone in a community plays a part in is building a social connectedness. In other words community.

As a young adult I was blithely unaware of the value of community. When my father died I was profoundly moved by all the people who had been a part of his life and came to his funeral. Not just friends or relatives but colleagues, neighbors, hunting and fishing buddies, Rotary members, my mother’s friends and associates, people from our church and many more. In his lifetime he built a community around him, a community that supported our family and many others.

Through the Child Care Action Council’s Crisis Nursery we see many parents that are isolated and don’t seem to have any social support network. When things fall apart — they get sick, become unemployed, experience domestic violence or the effects of substance abuse — they feel they have no one to turn to for support.

How as a nonprofit, a citizen or a friend, do we build a supportive community for families? Providing services through various public systems is essential but is only part of the solution.

John McKnight says that systems are capable of service but not of care. He suggests that the alternative to systems is associational life — groups of people coming together of their own free will to do some good.

There are many such nonprofits and community groups in Olympia and they are not all formally organized. Associational life builds when a neighborhood has a gathering place like a park, a child care center, a grocery store or a coffee shop that provides an opportunity for people to meet, engage in casual conversation and build common ground.

Too often we limit our social network to just the people who share our values and only engage in public issues when we are angry.

Peter Block, in the book “Community, the Culture of Belonging,” writes about building the social fabric and transforming isolation within our communities into connectedness and caring for the whole. He suggests that we shift our conversations from problems of the community to the possibilities of community.

Olympia has a strong community, but together in a variety of small ways, we can intentionally build an even stronger community full of creativity, accepting the now, and building a future on possibilities that nourish children and families and create a sustainable future.

What are you doing to strengthen and build community? It is not a job for political leaders, it is a job for everyone.

Annie Cubberly, executive director of the Child Care Action Council, is a member of The Olympian’s Board of Contributors. She can be reached at annie@ccacwa.org.