Hi everybody! I’ve been silent for a while. I’m not sure exactly why. Part of it is that I’ve been absorbed in a few projects, one of which has been standing up a resilience hub in my little town.
What is a resilience hub? It’s a kind of commons or community space: a place for people to get some help and to give some help to others. We are open three afternoons a week. We provide a free meal for whoever wants one, as long as supplies last, as well as a food bag of locally grown produce once a week. We provide access to laptops, internet, and printers, both 2-D and 3-D. We are starting a community garden. We hold classes in 3-D printing, gardening, saving/investing and calligraphy. We help people to access resources on the internet.
The hub is funded by Vibrant Hawai’i, a local non-profit, and our local Buddhist temple was kind enough to let us use their hall to house the hub. All of it came together, somehow, in confusion, haste, optimism, and utter chaos in September as part of the response to Covid19. We struggled for the first few months. It’s hard to start an organization from scratch, even with the best intentions and a source of funding. Luckily I had terrific co-conspirators – most of them people that I had never met before but who made a perfect team. Slowly we’ve picked up support and engagement from the community. People come by and donate produce, groceries, funds, and their time almost every day. It’s becoming a bit of a hangout for teens and for old folks, and a place for bit of help for the folks struggling on the margins.
This is wonderful community building work Michelle!
Such a good initiative – here’s wishing your hub and community well!
Two things:
First – It’s becoming a bit of a hangout for teens and for old folks I think this is wonderful… particularly if there is interaction between the teens and the older folks. Interactions between seniors and the very young are also encouraged from this end. The value of extended family relationships and multi-generational ties within and across related groups is immense and IMHO a potential solution to much that has gone sideways in modern life.
Second – Kikuchi… do you know what that means?
There is a fungus called Cercospora kikuchii which causes purple seed stain on soybean. It’s not a particularly damaging pathogen – and the purple color it imparts to seed is interesting.
Hi Clem! hope all is well with you. Yes, the old folks and the teens hang out together sometimes. A lot actually. It warms the heart. I don’t speak Japanese but I can read the Chinese/Japanese characters which say Chrysanthemum Land Hall. So I’m thinking Kikuchi is Chrysanthemum. Which come in purple. Not sure if that helps. Thanks for commenting, great to hear from you!!
I have seen so many great things come about and people come together because of your energy and insights, Michelle! Thank you.