On Zinn and Career Development

 “Small acts when multiplied by millions can transform the world.” That quote is attributed to Howard Zinn, an American historian, playwright, professor, and social activist probably best known for his A People’s History of the United States, (a book I highly recommend). When I built this website, LFPs were already multiplying. Thinking the quote appropriate, I put it at the bottom of the What We Do page. (That page needs work, BTW.) A year and a half later, I have a much better idea what it means.

Having graduated from a small liberal arts college with a degree in “English,” I enrolled in a master program to “study Faulkner” under the guise of becoming a teacher. After two years’ graduate assistance teaching Freshman Composition I and II, I went to law school (for a semester). “Teaching is a calling,” I said. “I can count the number of truly inspirational teachers I’ve had on one hand.” I wasn’t hearing the call. University of LaVerne’s website offers this: “50% – 70% of students change their majors at least once. Most will change majors at least 3 times before they graduate. Students should choose a major based on current job trends.” Many of us (me) are still trying to figure out what we want to be when we grow up.

Years later through the LFP Project I learned I love working with kids. Last week I worked with two Springdale Public Schools 4th and 5th grade EAST Initiative Program groups. The kids plan to map all NWA-area services from LFPs to LFLs to bricks and mortar pantries. They’d already mapped food deserts and hope their continued work will provide location guidance to potential pantry stewards/emergency food organizations. They’re considering the merits of website development over app development. A student asked about data. I explained because anonymity and discretion are conceptually critical, collecting data is difficult. One of the schools decided to connect with a local engineering firm about a solution.

Also last week, City of Charleston Vegan Club, Charleston Veggies & Vegans, and City of Charleston Faculty for Compassionate & Sustainable Living celebrated World Vegan Day with a potluck and party. Admission to that event was a vegan donation to the Lowcountry Blessing Box Project.

This Saturday, Algiers Point Free Lil Pantry will host a Free Lil Thanksgiving planning meeting at The Crown and Anchor English Pub.

A small act multiplied by millions does transform the world because it inspires others, whether to the same or tangential action. A small act’s greatest potential to transform the world, though, is that it creates unpredictable and diverse opportunities for connection among those in its orbit—from EAST Initiative Program students, to engineers, to vegans, to pub-goers--those connections influencing unpredictable and diverse action across disciplines. So much complexity may be found within an empty box, a small act.

Often what mediates that complexity is our simple human need to serve others--a community’s impoverished, someone at the bar. What are the current job trends? Is it any wonder we don't know what to do with ourselves? Better guidance for those of all ages might be, How will you serve?

Logistics

All day yesterday, I was a logistics manager.

Before LFP, I was a Thrivent Financial Associate. I made my own schedule, which came in handy when LFP took off since almost immediately I was working full-time on LFP-related stuff.  I maintain my securities license and affiliation with Thrivent but stepped back from a role with expectations. This means I still do some Thrivent work.

Task one: Coordinating a local poultry producer’s donation of Thanksgiving turkeys to two area churches, a task once handled by Thrivent volunteers. (It’s complicated.) On November 17th I’ll pick up and deliver 52 raw birds.

Task two: Coordinating an Indianapolis newspaper’s donation of 50 plastic newspaper boxes to LFP. I am in Fayetteville, AR, but because of the work I do (LFP) when I’m not doing my actual work (Thrivent), I have connections to Indianapolis-area groups. They’re taking it from here. 50 new projects!

Task three: Creation of a spreadsheet of Northwest Arkansas area LFPs, made for a large local corporation who will use it do community service. (26; another five unconfirmed.)

And so on until 8:15.

Poverty and distribution are the leading causes of hunger, and I spent all day yesterday on the distribution side. I'm ready to get to work on poverty. I anticipate that work, too, will have lots to do with the logistics of mobilizing people to act.

The Cupboard Under the Stairs

Two Saturdays ago I was part of a Leadership Panel for the local Kappa Kappa Gamma chapter GIRLS (Girls Inspiring Respect, Leadership, and Service) Academy, a day-long retreat for 5th and 6th grade girls. Each panelist responded to questions like, “How did you get where you are today?” and “If you could offer advice to your 5th or 6th grade self, what would it be?” Then, the girls asked questions, among them, the ubiquitous, “If you could travel anywhere in the world, were would it be?” (South Africa)

Part of my response to the “from-there-to-here” question was, “Read books. And lots of kinds of books.” Shortly after, I watched a girl with red hair and freckles work up the courage to ask, “What one book would you recommend we all read?” My answer was spontaneous and obvious. Harry Potter.

Late last night, I finished Brene Brown’s Braving the Wilderness. Brown loves JK Rowlings’ Harry Potter series, too, and writes about it a couple times in her latest. When struggling to convey new, research-supported ideas, Brown imagines Rowlings’ voice saying, “Give us the stories that make up that universe. No matter how wild and weird the new world might be, we’ll see ourselves in the stories” (4). The second time as an example of connection through collective pain, Brown describes the scene from Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince when the Hogwarts staff and student body, gathered around Dumbledore’s body, raise their wands to dispel the dark mark. “Wands Up” (124,5).

Both Brown’s observations are relevant to the project, but a couple pages early in her book prompted me to even more reflection on Harry Potter and Little Free Pantry. Brown writes about how not belonging in one’s family “is still one of the most dangerous hurts,” having “the power to break our heart, our spirit, and our sense of self-worth” (14).  A page later she writes, “Sometimes the most dangerous thing for kids is the silence that allows them to construct their own stories—stories that almost always cast them as alone and unworthy of love and belonging” (15). One of three outcomes then occur. 1. Numbing or inflicting pain. 2. Denial and passing on of pain. 3. Courage and empathy (14).

The Dursleys kept Harry Potter in a cupboard under the stairs. The series inspires not because Harry, “The Chosen One,” defeats Voldemort. It inspires because for Harry outcomes 1 or 2 are most logical. Instead he is sorted into Gryffindor, a house known for its courage, and as Horcrux, he embodies empathy with the one most responsible for both his individual pain and his world's collective pain; he literally understands and shares Voldemort’s feelings. In Order of the Phoenix, just after Belletrix Lestrange kills Harry's godfather, Sirius Black, Harry says to Voldemort, “You're the one who is weak. You will never know love or friendship. And I feel sorry for you.” Harry escapes the cupboard under the stairs.

Little Free Pantry is another cupboard, and I like to think it offers another counter-story to those who see themselves as alone and unworthy of love and belonging. In a world where numbing or inflicting pain and denial and passing on of pain are increasingly normalized, I am certain it is a weird, wild, new space calling all who interact with it to courage and empathy. 

My advice? Read books. Have courage, girls. Pantries Up. 

Dumbledore's Army Forever