Community garden has its benefits

To the Editor:

I have it on good authority that there is a community garden project coming to Brazil in the New Year, and I'd like to share a few thoughts on this with your readers.

Sustainability is in the general consciousness these days, and many everyday folks are taking steps to live their lives a bit more like their grand parents or great-grandparents. Most people of my grandparents' generation had a garden that provided supplemental food, had a decently stocked pantry and knew how to preserve their harvests to keep that pantry stocked for lean times. It seems that the shock of the depression from 2008 reminded a lot of people that this was a pretty reasonable practice, because these activities have definitely been trending up since those financial woes began.

That is all well and good, and I encourage everyone who can to find out more about projects like the one in Brazil, or to just plant a couple seeds in a pot to see if you like it. It could make a great difference in your mental and financial well-being.

However, I truly want to urge all reading this to remember the first word in community garden: community. A true sense of community is something that the baby boom generation and after has lost. Community was what got my grandparents through the Great Depression and then through WWII. We no longer have those bonds as a society. You may not feel it now, but when times get tough again, and they will eventually, you will feel its absence. You may be feeling it already without even recognizing it.

How many of us pay extortionate rates for childcare, causing us to have to work longer hours or an extra day? What if 5-7 families in your neighborhood decided to take off one day a week each to help watch each others' kids? I bet you would all spend less money AND have to work less, and the kids would be happier for it, too.

That is just one small example of community working on a micro scale, and it can scale up a lot; but it has to start somewhere: with you and me.

Go out and meet your neighbors. You never know when you might need each other.

Casey Bennett

Terre Haute