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Building our Community

Eve Bruntlett
The Commuter

Tuesday, March 10, 2009

On campus and around our local areas more and more jobs, careers, and opportunities are disappearing. This includes LBCC’s rapidly deteriorating art department and the closing of the well-loved Corvallis pub The Fox and Firkin. When the economy turns sour it isn’t the big box stores that go first. It is the small family-owned shop down the corner that is forced to close its doors. This is why it is important to focus on our community. Support the place you live in. Help each other to make it through these rough times. Helping each other out doesn’t mean giving all you spare money to the poor or volunteering 40 hours a week. It means trying to find ways to keep our money being spent in our town and given to our towns’ people, not to the head of Wal-Mart who is probably still swimming in money. Shopping locally can be more expensive, but it is also worth it. Instead of buying your vegetables at Safeway, go to you local farmers market. When you need that bolt to fix your toilet, don’t go to Home Depot. Go to the small hardware store downtown, and you will probably find what you need faster in a much more enjoyable environment.
As I look around town I also see people losing their homes because they can’t pay the bank. Many of them will have places to go after losing their homes, but some won’t. Whenever we have clothing that we don’t want any more we take it to Goodwill. Why don’t we take it to our local homeless shelter and put it right in the hands of the people who really need it. Often people don’t really think about how much they have until they have to live without it. Imagine living without a bed at night or a coat in the winter. It is not just in developing countries that people are going without these necessities. The Jackson Street Youth Shelter gives food, clothing, and a place to stay to homeless youth in Corvallis and from other areas around the state. They also offer to these teens people to talk to and help getting back together with their families or into a more stable living environment. To provide these services they need donations. All of the clothing, blankets, and food come from people donating. Everybody is in need of money these days, but to make it through we have to come together as a community. Even without a lot of money we can still get by and keep our “shops around the corner” open and running.

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