Last week I went to the Planning for Prosperity Forum that was put on by the City. During the discussion period there were comments about the concern of losing the our sense of community due to our growth.
I challenge that theory. I don't think community is defined by the size of a city but rather it is defined by the people in that city. Community is about a sense of belonging, it's about the whole being greater than the sum of all the parts. If you look up the word community in the dictionary it doesn't refer to any special number of people. It repeats in several ways that it's a group of people sharing common interests, values, goals etc.
So if it's all about the "who" and not "how many" how do you create community. I think it's easy, step one is to just say "hi". I was at a doctors appointment with my son a while ago and there was another little boy and his mother in the waiting room. The kids were starring at one another and the other Mom and I were encouraging them to introduce themselves to each other, share the toys and play. After a minute it occurred to me that here I was telling Lochlan to be friendly and take a chance at saying hi to someone new, meanwhile the other Mom and I had not said hello, exchanged our names or anything (but we of course knew each other's child's name and age by this point). If I'm going to expect Lochlan to say hi, then I better set an example and do it myself, so I did. Life is busy these days and we all have a million things to do and are running at mach 10, but it only takes a second (literally) to say "hi" or smile at someone.
Another way to build community is to help each other out, big or small it doesn't matter it will always mean a lot. For example, I was out with kids in a giant Radio Flyer wagon complete with canopy. I was attempting to navigate this giant thing with a turing radius of a semi through a door and into a store. A woman in the store saw me struggling and came and held the door for me. She won't get any award for that but I sure appreciated it and I let her know. Sometimes we can help each other out face to face, other times is can be anonymous like through the food bank or other charities.
We can also help as a group. Two weeks ago we did a neighborhood clean up. There were probably 30 people that all got together on a Saturday morning to pick up garbage. It was wonderful to see so many people gathered with the same goal in mind. With so many hands we made quick work of picking up debris and we all got to know each other at the same time.
The photo below it the ultimate example of community. This morning we went to Genesis Place to support the 2014 Alberta Summer Games coming to Airdrie. There were tons of people, cheering and excitement. It was great! During the event it was announced that we were in fact awarded the Games! This didn't just happen, it was community that brought the Games here. I'm sure it started with one or two people saying "this would be great, we should bid for these Games". From there it turned into the bid committee that was made up of local people. Once we were finalists it was put out to the rest of Airdrie to show our support. Thousands of people showed their support for the Games when they first visited in April 2012 and I'm sure that enthusiasm was a big factor in us getting the Games.
I don't think Airdrie's growth is going to hurt our sense of community one bit, I think it will enhance it! There will be more people to say "hi" to, more events around town to help out with, more sports teams to coach and more friends to cheer on. It's up to all of us to create community, we've been doing a great job of it for that last 103 years, I'm sure we can do even better for the next 103.
