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During Eat Local Week Kam and I shared a meal with Walker and Emma Starling at Luma on Park Ave. The food was delicious and the conversation, as always, was rich and varied. We spent a fair amount of the time talking about my filming in Haiti and the work I’ve been involved with down there and what effects the earthquake is having on our villages. One of the chief problems our friends face is getting access to aid now that the roadways are not capable of supporting the heavy trucks that usually ship goods throughout the country. While light-weight trucks can make the trip, they are in too short of supply to handle the mountain of aid waiting to be distributed.
Walker mentioned that he was thinking of donating a light-weight truck from his dealership to help solve this bottleneck. He had been Inspired by the Twitter buzz following Bill Clinton’s call for Haiti aid at the World Economic Forum where he mentioned that they needed 100 light-weight trucks ASAP to distribute aid. Unfortunately Walker was finding it far more complicated to get a truck to Haiti then one might imagine.
And here is the reason I’m writing this post. Most people when faced with a similar situation would say “Well my intentions were good” would pat themselves on the back and say “I tried”. I think a lot of this mentality is what keeps people in our community from realizing their vision and expressing their creative ideas. At the Wendell Berry talk I attended he said that he didn’t see the change our country needed coming from the leadership at the top.
Rather, leadership is coming from the people at the bottom. It’s the folks who are organizing farmer’s markets and community supported agriculture farms, small local conservation efforts, those types of things, that’s the start. It’s going on with the consumers, with the urban agrarians, organizing to bring good, local food to city markets, those things are happening. They are going to be happening a long time before the leadership at the top even notices it. The people who are leading from the bottom are going forward without permission or grants or instruction from the top. They are just doing it. That’s what I’m putting my faith in.
This is a concept that really resonates with me. Julie Norris, of Dandelion Communitea Cafe, and I have often spoken about the need for more people to just “Do It” in our community. There are so many folks with outstanding ideas that are waiting for some kind of divine intervention before striking out and making their dream a reality. Those of us already out there developing community aren’t special, we’re no different from those who attend our events, the only difference is that we actively engage and participate and think “What the hell, let’s try it”.
That is what Walker did. He kept making phone calls to fellow dealers, to the NADA, to a Clinton Foundation representative, to anyone who would listen. He created a website to inform and rally the troops. Within two weeks he had commitments from General Motors, the NADA and car dealers throughout the South East for over 80 trucks. With the Clinton Foundation’s help those trucks are going to be in Haiti next week and Walker is confident that 100 or more trucks will be on the boat.
I love stories like this. It embodies the rock star lifestyle Greg Rollet espouses “The Quest to Surf on Tuesdays and Save the World on Fridays.” Our generation has access to unparalleled tools for communication in social media and the Internet. It is inspiring to see young people using them to change the world for the better. I can only hope that this post will inspire you to bring your creative ideas to life in our community, share your talent and let the obstacles be damned.
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