Hard times are bringing the best out in people. I can’t talk for the rest of the world, country or even the rest of the province.
I can’t say if it depends on the size of the community or if many people can say that about their cities, but I noticed that from week to week I’m becoming more and more proud of the place I live in.
Almost since the very beginning of the pandemic, my weekly agenda started changing. First, all regular activities were cancelled which left us one on one with the COVID-19 topic, desperately looking for other things to cover. But then some amazing things started happening.
All of a sudden, I started noticing posts offering free grocery delivery or free food or supplies packages for those, who may have missed out on getting essentials during that “toilet paper panic” wave.
I knew Estevan is a generous community that does respect the “Give where you live” motto. The city always supported all of its charities, the people here were fast to rally around good causes and raise money for important initiatives. So when not for profit organizations paused their work, the attention automatically got switched to the most essential one – the food bank. And the food bank in its turn promised that they will continue serving everyone in need.
I talked to them; they say donations keep coming (and hopefully will continue to do so as their client base keeps growing) in different shapes and quantities from cheques to individual cans or boxes of non-perishable food, and people continue giving what they can.
The next new wave I noticed was about gratitude. It started with the hearts campaign (one may argue that it’s definitely not unique to Estevan, which is true, but it just adds to the picture I’m painting). Every other house or business got decorated by one or numerous hearts sending positive messages out and showing all the love people have piling up inside during the times of self-isolation.
When the amount of that love boiled over, people started organizing appreciation activities to show their support and cheer up healthcare and emergency service workers, store staff and truck drivers, anyone who keeps working so others could stay safely at home.
First responders, who are at least as busy as they always are, found time to give love back to the community. They stop by to celebrate birthdays to the strains of sirens and they show that they care in any other possible way (after all, they are the same members of the community as anyone else).
Then Easter came, and people who do not necessarily have kids of their own went far and beyond to ensure that despite the pandemic the youngest members of the community don’t miss out on being kids and still enjoying Easter the way it’s supposed to be. And while the real egg hunt wasn’t an option, a community-wide virtual activity generated many laughs and great moments for local families.
One may argue that all I’ve described is fluff and easy to do, but further proof for my point came with tragedy. When the local family lost their house to a fire last week, nobody thought twice or was purged by hard times. The community came together and did what they could to help them out through donations, support and all other types of help including pies.
There is a broken windows theory. Briefly, it’s a criminology theory that suggests that visible signs of crime and civil disorder, such as broken windows, create an urban environment that encourages further crime and disorder. I feel in our case, we are creating an opposite phenomenon where kind gestures trigger the inherent goodness in people, creating an unstoppable chain of positive moves that often go beyond local borders. I called it a window hearts theory.
Every week I talk to my family and friends at home and tell them what I get to write about. Not only I feel excited to share my pride with them, but I also see that kind, caring and generous things people do here inspire them, make them smile and make their day a bit brighter.
With all that said, I know that it’s hard for everyone now. We all are anxious, we don’t like the changes and new order, we miss our families, we grief about celebrations that are cancelled, we regret all the events that won’t happen, but we are still strong enough to respect safety measures, thank the workers and do small or big moves to cheer each other up.
So thank you, Estevan, for being so incredibly kind and amazing!
