#community work

talk to people, talk to your neighbors, go to the library call a friend, on discord or signal or your phone, whatever say "hi" to someone walking down the road give an earnest compliment to someone at the bus stop smile at someone on the bus

yes, the world is a dark place yes, the systems of injustice in place in it are not ones that you personally can change

but first and foremost you're a social animal facing unprecedented times of social disconnection

go to a community event help out at some kind of group that helps out in your city or your neighborhood work at a soup kitchen or a support organization or advocacy group join some other effort to ease the suffering of this world

Can you donate to help pay for food and bus?

paypal.me/tsamij

I had the opportunity to both help my local community and be deservedly humbled on Saturday afternoon. As I do every week I spent the afternoon doing community work arranged and supervised by the Vicar's wife. It is an opportunity for me to perform deserved penance for my past sins which have brought shame to my family and our Church whilst performing useful service to our community.

I have to dress in my usual modest dress and humiliating long knitted wool cardigan for all to see.

I started performing hand washing of laundry in the local old folks home.

This was followed by clearing litter in the main street. It is awful the mess that people leave but a deserved menial task for me to have to clear up. It reminds me of the unnecessary effort I have caused my family through my misbehaviour. It is fitting that I should now have my time spent clearing up the thoughtless mess caused by others.

My final task was to scrub and clean the public toilets as they were used. It was an unpleasant, degrading and humbling task as I had to make clear to anyone who asked why I was performing this work.

I must thank the Vicar's wife for continuing to devote her valuable time to ensure I perform the community work required as part of my ongoing discipline.

The memory of being on my hands and knees scrubbing the public toilets for all to see dressed in my long dress and dowdy wool cardigan will remain with me until I report for duty again next week. This helps ensure I am deterred from further selfish misbheaviour.

If you’ve followed this blog from the beginning you’ll know that I do water distro in my neighborhood each summer. It’s a small scale operation. I take a couple of cases of water out to share with unsheltered neighbors. Most of the time, the water is provided to me by Unsheltered Phoenix. They are an org downtown which is basically just a couple of good hearts taking on an issue the city refuses to address. Lefty and Sophia do water distro on a large scale. We’re talking pallets of water and ice. They set up water stations around the downtown area and even in their front yard. This has caused them to lose their rental housing on more than one occasion. They finally decided to buy a fixer upper home of their own downtown. The night before they moved in, the vacant home was vandalized and stripped of copper piping. Their plumbing is unusable. You can check out their story and their work here.

If you can help them out, please do. A share is an enormous help. Sharing their story increases their reach not only for their own help, but to shed a light on the year round work that they do. If you can donate, repair estimated are at $4900. Their Venmo & cashapp are both RadicalCommunityCare. Please add “for pipes” in the notes so they know it’s for them and can differentiate from community donations.

Thank you so much!!

>> ALL THE DETAILS HERE. <<

Ben for your reading efforts:

Today is April 4th. Their Venmo/cashapp is RadicalCommunityCare

Alternatively, purchase and distribute these water jugs in your area! Share this post if you can!