It feels good to come together for the giving season. We welcome moments with family and friends. We build memories.
We give thanks. We give gifts. We give kind words and warm wishes. Giving is one of the most poignant things we can do for one another. We build cherished moments around giving this time of year.
2023 proved to have its own challenges, whether it was at an emotional or physical level. To say we live in challenging times would be an understatement. Fortunately, we have one another.
We would argue, as we do at other times of the year as well, that we need to be giving back to our communities right now. It is important to be supportive of where we live and make our mark.
Our quality of life depends in large part on our sense of community. Where we live, raise families, pay taxes, matters to us. In Vermont, legacy plays into that fondness. And so does the smallness of our state. The rurality is only made more attractive by the beautiful landscape around us.
There remains much at stake for our state right now. Every one of us should take proper steps toward placing some focus on it and our towns. That means giving back.
Each one of us can make the difference.
First, we must spend our money locally. Businesses across the state depend on us as consumers to pay for their goods and services. Most of the time when we order something online, we are sending our money to another state. Those online purchases do little to keep mom-and-pop stores open. Spending money locally is investing in your community. In turn, the sales taxes you pay help the state, and that fuels the economic engine. Certainly, it comes down to choice. But it also comes down to changing behavior. It was not long ago that you had to drive to shop for a majority of what you needed. The disconnection that online shopping has created is taking away from the community as a resource. We interact less, and it shows.
Second, if you are truly concerned about your community, you have to understand it. That means knowing what is going on, who is making the decisions, and being a part of the process of deciding how your municipality is spending your tax dollars. Of course, we will submit you need to be reading your local newspapers, not just for a run-down of accounts of public meetings, but to read the public notices, the meeting warnings, as well as the letters to the editor and commentaries of residents raising concerns about our communities. Armed with a knowledge of what is going on, you can then step in and be a part of the process by attending meetings where town leaders are discussing proposed budgets and high-profile issues that might affect your wallet and quality of life. If you are one of those individuals who grouses every Town Meeting Day about the ballot items that you feel are driving up your taxes, you had plenty of options to have your opinion heard. (If you have not been paying attention to the front page, that process is happening right now, and several municipalities and school districts are really struggling with budgets. It’s worth dialing into those conversations because they are going to get hard very quickly now.)
Third, volunteer. Whether it is as a mentor or working at the local food shelf. It is very easy in our society to just take and take and take. Yet we are taking away from what matters, which is doing things that make a difference in our community. We want our town and schools to be better places. More and more, we are seeing the vulnerable populations of this state facing more challenges every day, whether it is finding housing or reliable transportation, or mistreatment and harassment, or judgment and callousness. The goodwill of volunteering (or supporting those organizations that provide valuable services) is critical to the mechanics of society. Too often, we are quick to dismiss that effort as not worth our time, or someone else’s problem. But these are our communities collectively, and we need to do more to stand together and help one another with grace and kindness. The lift any volunteer makes, the work of others becomes easier.
Isn’t that what we all want right now? We want things to be a little easier. We want to feel connected to one another far beyond a wave from a passing vehicle.
We can blame devices for stealing our attention and interpersonal communication skills. Or we can point to politics as the source of friction. Ultimately, though, those are excuses for not wanting to engage. The hypocrisy, of course, is that we still want all the things we want from our community but many of us are not inspired to make the investment of time or resources to make the change.
There is a “magic” people attach to the holiday season. Some of that energy — the positivity, the camaraderie, the hope — has a place in our neighborhoods, in our schools, along our Main Street. We just have to take the steps necessary to give back.
