What does community mean to you?

thoughts from Bea and Belle, and protecting our libraries

Greetings from Maryland, where last night we enjoyed a beautiful sunset on Baltimore’s harbor and picked crabs like locals. Today Bea will receive a medal for her Carson Scholarship and meet other Carson scholars, in grades 4-11, from all over.

To apply for this scholarship, which recognizes academic excellence and community service, Bea chose to answer the question, “What does community mean to you?” At first, she wasn’t sure that she had an essay-length answer to that question, but I knew she did. Last fall, we were at a hospital with Grampa and Mamie, and she’d been practicing typing on my laptop, so I suggested she give it a try.

Here is what she wrote:

I believe that community is not just a place, but a group of people who come together to support each other. I live in a rural part of Chatham County, North Carolina, where there aren’t sidewalks or streetlights or stores. The houses are far apart, and you can’t even see my house from the road.

But I have a strong community around me. I have community at Perry Harrison Elementary School, with my friends and teachers. I have community in my neighborhood, where I pet-sit for my neighbor Ellen’s rescued senior collies. And I have community in my county, where we work together to make things better for all kids, teachers, and public schools.

This year, I participated in a Chatham County educator and parent campaign to help get teachers better pay. There were many reasons: the teachers deserved it, and in some schools, kids didn’t have permanent teachers because the pay was too low to compete with schools in nearby counties. I helped make signs, I told my friends about it, and I went to many school board meetings with my mom, dad, and little sister. I had to keep my little sister entertained while paying attention and taking notes (and doodling). Our goal was to get the school board, and then the county, to approve a supplement for every teacher in public schools in Chatham County.

Finally, after a lot of meetings, the school board agreed to ask for $2700 increases for every teacher. I learned that this wasn’t the end: we still needed to talk to the county commissioners, who would need to vote on it. I decided to take action; I couldn’t just sit by and let the grownups do all the work. In order to get better pay for teachers everyone needed to speak. So at the May Commissioner Meeting I wrote a paper about my fourth grade teacher, Ms. Bearman. I wrote that Ms. Bearman had been at Perry Harrison since the school opened, is National Board Certified, has a master’s degree in education, and she manages to be the best teacher ever, every day. I said that she and all other teachers deserved our support.

I had to say all of this at the County Commissioner meeting in Downtown Pittsboro. Every bench in the courthouse was packed with people, and I was really nervous. I thought I was good at public speaking, but I’d never done this before. I took a deep breath and went up to the podium when they called my name. I felt my community behind me, and I read my paper. I stumbled once or twice at the beginning but as I kept going I got better and better.

Guess what? In June, our commissioners voted to give all Chatham teachers a $2000 raise. I was so proud of myself and everybody who helped with this, and I learned a lot about community and how powerful we are when we work together.

She was able to share it with Mamie and Grampa in the hospital room.

In every way, even though we were in a hospital in Mechanicsville, that time was better. Both grandpas were still alive. The election had not happened. Trump was not president, and the terrifying attacks on our communities had not started. Local, winnable fights still seemed like the most important way to spend our time.

But Ellen is still rescuing collies. Our house is still invisible from the road, but next to our mailbox are two sweet metal sculptures, left by a friend who travels our road often and wanted to make sure she didn’t miss us. My neighbor Sonya just offered our whole neighborhood herbs from her garden, and we have a date to transplant tomatoes from my garden to hers. Ellen says she has mulberries to share. The young people at this event today will all have done many different kinds of service in their communities and will still be doing service when they go home again. Local fights are still important, still winnable, and maybe most importantly connected to the nationwide fight for democracy.

Here’s something you can do for your community if you live in North Carolina: tell your state legislator to protect NC public schools and libraries from censorship. Senate Bill 636 would require public schools to narrowly establish criteria for what books are allowed in their libraries and allow any residents to challenge books they deem “unwholesome” (most challenged library books nationwide are those that feature the lived experiences of Black, Latine, Asian American & Pacific Islander, Indigenous and LGBTQ+ communities). The bill even allows book banners to take legal action against schools for violating this rule. It’s a bureaucratic nightmare for our understaffed schools and a deliberate attack on public schools, public libraries, and our diverse (whether Republicans like it or not) communities.

Thanks to McIntyre’s Books for speaking up about this issue!

We’re curious: What does community mean to you? What helps you feel at home in your community?