Working in community services organizations is a long and proud tradition in my family. My great-grandfather actually started the first community organization in our city. Back then, it was a small farming community. Although it has gone through its share of troubles since then, they are nothing compared to the problems the community founders faced. Back then, for those folks brave of foolish enough to live in rural Minnesota, life was hard. Community organizing was much different than it is today. It was not simply a matter of giving kids something to do after school or making sure that old people without cars could get around to their social activities. Back in those days, community organizations were about the basics. They were about making sure that people survived the winter – not always an easy task.
Although i grew up in a very small community, we had a remarkable degree of civic service in the area. Many the best community organization professionals in the state their start right there. You see, although we didn't have many formal community organizations, we all did our best to take care of each other. Between providing after school activities at the recreation center and collecting food for the needy at the church, we did a pretty good job of making sure that everyone in the whole neighborhood got taken care of.
When I left the town to get into community organizing in the city, however, I was in for a big surprise. The community organization scene here is much bigger, as are the problems that people face. Back home, low income communities are still safe places to live. In the city, however, it is much different. Problems like drugs, overcrowding, and violence make it so that even surviving is a daily struggle for many kids. The cops don't help, and the city has given up on making the slums better. It is up to community organizations to take up the slack.
Although I was a little bit daunted by the terrible community organization problems that I faced when I first got there, it was nice to know that I could make a difference in such a tough area. I was passionate about being an organizer and I knew that, with the dedicated help of the volunteers we had assembled, I could really make a difference. It took a long time, but I think things have finally started to change.
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