The Need for community

     This crisis that we are all enduring is global, it is effecting everyone on this planet in some way or another. "We're in this together" has been a term used and seen everywhere over the last month. What's been interesting about all of it, is that our battles, our worries, our stresses, although they all stem from the COVID crisis, they are all different. Each one of our scenarios is different. Some of us are working at home while taking care of our families and teaching our children. Some of us can't sleep at night worrying about EVERYTHING our minds lead us to. Some of us are out of a job or have had to close or cut hours for our small business, are going without pay or had our earnings drastically cut and some of us are living each day terrified as we head into work, putting, ourselves and our families at risk. 
     Through all of this our need for community has been stronger than ever, no matter what community you live in. Our need to take care of our neighbors and be there for each other is extremely necessary. Whether that's a drive by car parade to brighten someone's day, or a phone call to check in on how someone is doing, or a Zoom meeting to lighten the mood and share laughs with friends. We need each other, we need the people around us (6 feet away and beyond).     
      Anyone who knows Nick and I, are aware that we take a lot of pride in our little town. We love raising our children here and we love all of the little treasures this town has to offer. We are both involved in this community and are passionate about giving back to it in any way that we can, we are loyal to those people near and dear to our family and we have a deep respect for what this community does for each other. Although our day to day has changed and we are working hard to navigate our new routines, schedules and reality, we feel extremely blessed to still be getting paid through all of this. We understand the blessings in this and we understand and appreciate that it is our responsibility to do what we can to help our community get through this. 
     Many people wonder or feel like there has to be a way that they can be helping through this crisis. We're not on the front lines but just at home doing nothing and although that is helping tremendously, we feel helpless. In our home, we strongly believe that our obligation in helping in this crisis is to support our local businesses any way that we can. We are doing our best to order to go food from our local and loved restaurants, we are donating money to local food banks serving others, we are making purchases and orders at small local shops, we are ordering items online that we might not need now but know that we will need eventually. We are purchasing gift cards for future use and we are doing our best to support those who are coming up with out of the box ways to earn a profit.  We feel very strongly that we have an obligation to do what we can to support those around us. 
     These are small acts that we can only hope will have a positive impact on a community we love so much. We do our best to share opportunities to help with others and hope that our children are learning the importance of taking care of others when you are in a position to do so. Although we certainly don't feel like we are doing enough, we aren't saving lives or putting ourselves at risk every day, we do feel like we are putting in a valiant effort to do our part and we hope that if you're in a position to do so right now, you will too.
​We're in this together!