Sebastappeal by Sarah Glade Gurney — April 2020

Make It Through Together

I had several topics ready for this month’s column, each of civic interest. I’d intended to promote the activities planned in Sebastopol to celebrate Earth Day on its 50th anniversary. I wanted to encourage citizens to attend the Budget Sub-Committee’s public meetings about funding community grants and reviewing departmental requests for FY 20-21. I was going to explaina new Water Bill Savings Program that would allow customers to invest in system upgrades to better conserve water, without any financing costs. I’d planned to advertise the openings on the local Library Advisory Board and report on the developing Strategic Plan for our Regional Library. And, of course, I was going to send a big thank you to the Documentary Film Festival volunteers as I looked forward to the Apple Blossom Parade and Festival.

But our world has been rocked by the ongoing public health crisis, some say “never to return.” Activities and events have been canceled or postponed indefinitely. Public meetings have been abbreviated and gone remote. Programs have been put on hold. So much has become uncertain.

There’s been a rapid scale down of economic and social activity to keep people at home: non-essential businesses closed; work force reduction, both public and private; gatherings curtailed; schools on hiatus; roads and sidewalks emptied. People are staying home, maybe working remotely. They’re very likely worrying, about themselves, their kids, their parents and grandparents, extended family, and elder friends. They may be feeling a heightened sense of threat, about today’s finances to buy necessities or, for some, about their disappearing funds for their golden retirement years.

The effort to slow the spread of the virus and to lower the pandemic’s impact on the health care system, as it struggles to ramp up to meet unprecedented demand, needs to be made without devastating the physical, cultural and organizational capital that will be necessary to restore normality and growth in our future. Showing progress in limiting the spread of the virus and keeping our businesses in a position to rebound in a re-localized world will give us hope.

Let’s think about our experience, the come-back we want to make, and how we can keep ourselves prepared and able to recover and redefine.

Our City is small — only 7,800 residents — and serves about 60,000 people in the greater area. The City doesn’t have money to fund a Parks and Recreation Department, for instance. We’re a unique community in that we depend on many non-profits and organizations to perform typical business and government services: the Senior Center, the Library, the Center for the Arts, Ives Pool, the Community Cultural Center, the Mr. Music Foundation, the Laguna Foundation, and others.

To survive, these entities depend on the energy and creativity of their staff, the generosity of their volunteers, and the patronage of their donors.

Two months ago, I was excited about how well each of these groups was doing. In fact, they were working at capacity and seemed to me in need of opportunities and expansion to meet their full potential. I talked to several community leaders about “Sebastopol 2030,” my name for strategic visioning for these groups, in the “High Street Corridor, from Wilton to Willow,” and over at the Laguna Preserve. We were getting excited about finding ways for co-programming, co-meeting, co-partnering, co-employing, in order to optimize funds and space. We puzzled over parking and traffic in the downtown area. We looked up and around to see it there might be some usable, buildable space. The idea of optimizing together had a lot of juice.

An upbeat time has turned incredibly difficult, it seems, in an instant. Now, I’m alerting readers to the importance of these organizations’ survival. They are being seriously impacted by this unanticipated shut down. They are the weavers of our community who offer us the meaningful opportunities and myriad ways to belong here.

As we take care of ourselves at home, let’s also take care of these long-standing community institutions. Let’s make sure to express our thanks and appreciation to them with a friendly note and a check.

We’re in this together. Let’s make sure we make it through together.