Hey neighbors! Keep an eye out for a mother duck and seven ducklings last seen on McKinley near Walsh. The duck family was first spotted Tuesday night near Walsh and Colfax. A passing SBPD officer stopped traffic so the ducks could cross LaSalle, but then we lost track of them near Grace Bible Church.We think maybe they might be looking for water. We've seen ducks in recent months, but I haven't seen a whole family of young ones before this.
Other quick news of note:
1) The Neighborhood Resources Corp. has a new Facebook page. Please check it out, hit like and share with your friends, neighbors and colleagues! It really helps to build a presence, and to increase access and awareness of South Bend's communities. Here's the link:
2) Unity Gardens is holding a luau fundraiser this Saturday from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Please come help support the garden program -- more information here:
Resilience.
I love words, and resilience is a word that has texture and
dimensions for me. You can almost see resilience and hold it in your
hand.
Resilience
is flexible, and bends with the wind. Resilience is creative and
resourceful, as it tries new things and laughs out loud at its
failures. Resilience accepts reality without deflecting or
sugar-coating it, but then asks itself what that means and what
choices it needs to make. Resilience is curious enough to try puzzles
and identify problems, and courageous enough to solve them.
Resilience keeps its own counsel, but wisely benefits from others.
Resilience
charts its course but then has the independence and -- perhaps most
important -- the skills and knowledge to act on it. Most of us
think of resilience as a quality that emerges during a disaster or a
crisis, but I always think that resilience is just as critical to
embracing opportunity, hope, positive change and other "good
stuff" we might want to explore outside of a comfort zone. You
need resilience just as much to welcome a new child into your family,
take a class, try a sport, plan a dream vacation or make a new
friend.
And if words
had the power to be best friends, resilience would be mine.
Resilience
may, of course, mean something different to you. It does to lots of
people. In psychology circles, it refers to one's ability to cope
with stress and adversity. In economic talk, resilience is the
ability to survive and thrive in the buffeting winds of global
financial uncertainty. Security professionals speak of resilience in
the face of terror attack or cyber disruption, urban planners speak
of resilience when talking about infrastructure and services, and
resilience is a key word in disaster planning and emergency
preparedness.
I
was recently talking with someone about community emergency
preparedness training, and how it can offer that kind of resilience
and confidence to our friends, families and neighbors. It seemed like
no sooner did I have this conversation than the heat wave, severe
storms and power outages sweeping our own homes and the nation
reminded me that thinking ahead, having a plan and knowing what to do
can make such a difference.
So
after walking down to the garden and making sure none of the tomato
cages had launched airborne into Madison Street on Friday – they
didn't -- I started looking for helpful information and tips. I
didn't have to look farther than the June water bill insert on my own
desk. South Bend sent a list of plan items recommended by FEMA in it,
and also posted it online at South Bend newsletter.
I worked for 10
years as an East Coast paramedic before I became a journalist and
moved to South Bend, and community preparedness was my great research
and practice love. It still is. I know this stuff. But as I went down
the checklist I realized that I was still missing a few things. Meant
to, but never did replace the gallons of water I had that passed an
expiration date awhile back. Don't have a whistle. Oops, definitely
need flashlight batteries.
With
my NOAA weather radio alarm going off again on Sunday afternoon, I
wished I hadn't procrastinated about whatever is still stocked in the
first-aid kit. Now I won't be putting it off any longer. Actually,
the NOAA radio is itself a resource, but there's other great
information resources, at Ready.gov and Red Cross.
There's
also the scanners at RadioReference.com,
a site that allows you to listen to any online scanner, anywhere
in the country, and what public safety professionals are learning
there: It's hot, but the pools are closed because there's no power
for the pumps. There's no gas for miles and miles on I-79. We're
still giving out water over here, but we've run out of ice over
there.
Then
there's Twitter and other social media, to help learn things you
might not have thought of. Solar batteries, for example. Someone
currently in the dark on the East Coast pointed out that if you have
solar patio or sidewalk lights, the solar batteries recharge in the
sun. Voila.
Now
that's resilience. I
suspect this Eureka! moment occurred when the entire neighborhood was
pitch-black, and so was most of the state, except for the solar
lights over at the Neighbor Jones house. I was certainly
impressed. But the most resilient thing of all is to know
that it is the
Jones house. Better still, that we all know the Joneses.
Our
Madison Square Garden is itself a reflection or expression of
community resilience, and similar greenspace and urban garden
strategies are now being used by planners in countless American
cities. Any Web search will turn up new land use ideas used in
Portland, Cleveland, Detroit, Milwaukee, Indy or here.
But
the single most resilient thing about our community garden is the
community part. It's knowing the Joneses, and that they are
older folks -- so when it's this hot, someone should already know
them and check on them. Or
that Jones just went grocery shopping on Friday and he's about to
lose his food with the power still out? Make some space in your own
powered-up fridge or freezer.
Or,
as was the case for me two years ago when the tornado sirens went
off: When a neighbor tells you she doesn't have a basement and she
doesn't know where she can be safer, tell her she can come to yours.
They're
simple things and most of us do them already. Communities always come
together for these reasons, but being resilient starts way before the
tree limbs are down on the garage roof. If you'd be interested in
formally taking a Community Emergency Response Team training class?
I'd love to hear from you. I've wished that we had a neighborhood
team here for several years now, and it'd be easy enough for us to do
if there's interest in learning more.
Around
the nation, it's been gaining traction. In May, a Memphis program won
the national 2012 Best Neighborhood Program award from Neighborhoods
USA for training its citizens on five basic things to do, focusing on
the first 72 hours of a wider-scale emergency.
The
program partnered with more than 200 Memphis neighborhood
associations to do just that, and you can read more about it in the
Memphis
newspaper.
I love this
program. I also said I love the word resilience, and I do. Want to
find out how prepared and resilient you are? Click on the quiz links for emergency preparedness
education. There are three different ones, including the one that's
focused on pets and animals, but I kind of like the Baltimore County one myself.
