I’m working very hard to ignore the news these days:  tragic photos of Gaza refugees, stories of career civil servants being illegally dismissed, the fear of our many immigrant neighbors; it’s hard to avoid a sense of powerlessness.  I get it. My side of the political spectrum lost. The man we lost to has little respect for the values of community and compassion. His tools are division and fear.

A presentation by a young, enthusiastic politician at the county level brightened my day recently. He is leading efforts, gathering people and funds, for various projects. These projects will really change the lives of our region. He’s avidly involved in procuring state money to buy farms, most recently a huge farm near us for which local residents matched a state grant. He is collaborating with the mushroom farmers. Our region grows most of the mushrooms sold in the US. His goal is to encourage sustainability and protect their many immigrant workers. His list of projects was endless, optimistic, and exciting.

Tonight’s young politician reminds me of our town’s public Library Director. More than a year ago, he explained to our community his vision for a new community-focused, sun-lit library with glass exterior walls, interior classrooms for teaching English to non-native speakers and a seed library to share gardening creation. Not just books any more!

So many reasons to be renewed by these two presentations:

• Each offers opportunity for engagement, adding purpose to my life and those of my neighbors. I could (again) volunteer to tutor non-native English speakers in the library. I could attend Library Board or Chester County Commissioner meetings and add my voice to the items under discussion, for a starter.
• Community is where change really occurs, not in edicts from federal officials. Day-to-day happiness derives from social contacts, the sense of shared accountability for our common culture and our common good.
• Contact with these young leaders encourages me to be optimistic about the future of my community, and by extension, my country. Their energy adds to mine. In a nutshell, their visions give me hope for our future.

The best of our country is what occurs among neighbors. In these troubling times, news of neighbors helping one another was just what I needed. Together, we are more than the sum of our fears and divisions. Our country is the synergy of many local compassionate, caring communities. Hope for me today rests in local politics.