A crisis brings out the true nature of a community. Take, for example, a blizzard. Given that the city simply doesn’t have the resources to plow every street immediately, people are going to get stuck. It’s an inevitability, even the heftiest truck can become immobile thanks to snow.
I got stuck, both getting my car out of my driveway in the morning, and putting it back in at night. Both times, good samaritans stopped to help push, and without them I probably would be a nuisance in the middle of my street. In the morning, it was a neighbor and someone who was passing through, and in the evening it seemed to be a group of men who were roaming around for the purpose of helping people – they were in a Jeep and dressed for the weather, so at the very least they were prepared to help anyone who might have snow problems.
This is not the first example of people in the city going out of their way to help those who need it – floods and fires generated a similar response. But it’s a good reminder that you can tell what a community is like based on how they react to such a crisis. People wanted to help, and they went out of their way to assist people in getting going after big blizzard locked the city down.
It was a fairly simple gesture in most cases, and the important thing is that nobody had to do it. People helped because they saw people around them who needed the help, and they knew that they could contribute in a meaningful way. Sometimes the city contributes with money – see the Kinsmen getting over $30,000 for Telemiracle – and here people helped with a push or a shovel, whichever worked.
It’s also a nice way to build a bit of community. You now know one or two of your neighbors because you either pushed, or were pushed by, one of them. You get to meet someone with a positive experience and your first introduction is going to see the best of them. They’re going out of their way to help someone in need, or you’re going out of the way to help them, it’s showing off the best of Yorkton.
Nobody will claim that every community is perfect, and sure there are things in Yorkton we could improve or that we might wish to change. But the blizzard showed that this is a great community with great people in it, people who go out of their way to help the people who surround them when it’s a time of need. That’s a sign that no matter what happens, whatever disagreements we all may have or what changes may happen, this town is starting from a strong position, and we have a good community that looks out for each other here. Let’s keep that up.
