"We need to honor the saints in our midst. We have to support our small heroes. Who knows, perhaps that’s what the twenty-first century has in store for us. The dismantling of the Big. Big bombs, big dams, big ideologies, big contradictions, big countries, big wars, big heroes, big mistakes. Perhaps it will be the Century of the Small." — Arundhati Roy

Confronting all of today’s problems is pretty overwhelming, but thankfully all of them are not our responsibility. An organic family farmer can shake her head at the tragedy and shame of some politician’s decision and feel overcome by the personal tragedies of an unneeded war. She may choose to write letters and protest on a street corner, but her use, her craft, her main job is to grow and harvest the food. She cannot neglect her personal path, her meaningful work, by trying to change every wrong in the world.

By tending her garden, her farm, in her own personal way, which in itself changes the world for good, she is in her place, has grabbed a problem, and is mending it. She is loving us, her community, bright and shining with hope. She is making a difference — and fixing the world.

In every community, every neighborhood, every business, every church can be found unheralded Creative Action Heroes who go about fixing the world rather than escaping it. We can ignore them, and let them continue their quiet, crucial actions without much thanks — what most of them would want anyway because recognition is not why they do it — or we can honor them publicly for who they are and what they do. We can give thanks in public for a job well done, an example to be emulated, a life to be remembered. Who are the real heroes in your community? Here is a fantasy I hope will happen sometime soon, celebrating some of my heroes, real and imagined, in my own community:

Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to our Second Annual Creative Action Awards. Tonight we are honoring some ordinary people like you and me. These awards are based on mutually shared community values lived out by local heroes doing meaningful work.

Bret and Sid Cooperrider moved here several years ago to help their parents, Els and Allen, recipients of our very first community medal last year. Together the Cooperriders created our community “clubhouse,” the Brewpub. With all-organic food from our local farmers and organic beer made on the premises, a community meeting place blossomed. This is where our micro radio station first beamed out to the community. This is where our local organic network was first discussed and then formed and still meets today. We didn’t like the standards our federal government was using to certify organic foods, because it was becoming less than organic, so we took it into our own hands and created the Renegade label, following our own community standards, which were much tougher than those of the USDA. We did this to protect the health of our friends and neighbors here in our community and to help the market for our small farmers. The Brewpub is where the idea for banning genetically modified organisms from the county was first discussed and then organized. And who can forget the night we won, when Monsanto and the rest of the chemical bullies were thrown out on their fat wallet butts, and Guitar Shorty led the whole crowd out into the street for an impromptu boogie to celebrate? This is also where our new community credit union was first discussed and organized. This is where we created our alternative Briarpatch Chamber of Commerce, which has organized the ballot initiative to withdraw WalMart’s business license for colonizing our county, practicing predatory pricing, and illegally removing community currency to enrich their founders (who are barely getting by on their net worth of $100 billion). Be sure and vote next Tuesday. Good food, good beer, good company. Bret makes the beer and Sid makes the graphics and they both do everything else too, besides making everyone feel welcome. Our Creative Action Hero community medal for our heroes Bret and Sid will now take its honored place in our display here at the Brewpub, up on the mezzanine. We love you guys.

Laura Hamburg is the founder and editor of our community newspaper, the Bullhorn. When Laura came back to town after a successful career with a big city newspaper, all we had was our standard small town newspaper, owned by a large corporation located who knows where. It did all the things a newspaper usually does, but it was dull and boring and always writing “down” to us, and it did not represent the whole community. Laura brought passion and care and inclusion and love and a lot of fun to our community. I know the Bullhorn offends some of our seniors and business folks now and then, and I’m not going to mention the dustup with Reverend Billy over at the Gospel Tabernacle, but the paper has included a lot more of us in the published conversation, and by opening its website to everyone who has something to say, the vitality of our community has soared. Our Creative Action Hero community medal goes, with our love and honor, to our friend and neighbor and hero Laura “good- ol’- fashioned- tell- it- like- it- is- and- let- the- chips- fall- where- they- may- the- advertisers- be- damned- this- is- not- a- get- rich- scheme- journalist” Hamburg.

Small, local businesses are still the lifeblood of our community, and if we’re smart enough, we’ll shop less and less at the Big Box Monsters, and more and more at our local stores. Shop the local small businesses that make you smile inside when you think about them because they are fun and lighthearted, and you know the owners, and they offer stuff that is useful and lasts. Like Don’s Shoes, where you go for great knowledge and service and Don’s caring and integrity. Tonight we are honoring Don not only as a business owner we care about and trust but as an artist and volunteer. His art graces the walls of his store, as well as other businesses in town, and he is often seen collecting and bringing food to the food bank in his old truck. His talents and care add another dimension to the love we have for Don as a person. Our Creative Action Hero community medal goes to Don Hewitt.

Sharon Walker has been our part-time community organizer now for three years. Her other job is managing the all-organic produce department at the co-op, where at least 50 percent of the fruit and vegetables come from local farms. As a community, we decided to tax ourselves to fund a person whose sole job is to organize us to be an effective community that lives our values. The first thing she did was organize our community credit union. It is now accepting deposits, federally insured, that will be used to offer loans to small farmers, so they can build greenhouses and grow food for our community year-round; to homeowners who want to install alternative energy systems; to small, local businesses to expand their services; and to new, local businesses and cooperatives who want to add ser-vices to meet our community’s needs. The credit union will also be the center for our local community currency operation, Better Bucks. We want the bucks to stop here. Next Sharon organized the alternative Briarpatch Chamber of Commerce, which is now going strong, and she’s just returned from the vacation we forced on her. We almost had to tie her up and take her to the plane to get her out of our hair. But, Gawd, do we love this woman. Our hearts are full of gratitude for her energy, and for the community she has helped foster in her own unique way. Our Creative Action Hero community medal goes to Sharon Walker.

We all know that large white building just outside of town, the one we all call “The Corp.” Many of us go there often to walk along the creek and wetlands that the company has established on the property and deeded to the conservation district. When they moved their business here five years ago, we were wary of the potential impact they would have on our community. We’d heard all the stories of large companies coming in, paying off the politicians, throwing their weight and money around to get what they want, dominating the community. First, we were surprised by their openness. Not only did they post their financial information on the company’s own internal website but they also posted it on their external website for all to see. Profit and loss statements, cash flow, balance sheets, all are updated weekly. They use this information internally for planning, so all employees know how the company is doing and what to adjust, but they are so proud of how they do business and care so much about our community that they want complete transparency. They have nothing to hide and are fiercely proud of their sustainable, ecology-based values. Included are their monthly sustainability reports on their recycling program, the process and costs of handling their waste stream, their donations program (political donations are strictly forbidden), and their Community Crusader Awards Program. They also publish the salaries of their democratically elected management team, and their average wage, for comparison purposes. The other surprise was the company’s ownership and board of director structure. Outside investors hold two seats on the board and own one-third of the company. (These investors must reside within the county.) The employees, who also have two seats on the board, own another third. And the company’s founders, with their two seats, own the final third. A board president, who comes from the community and is elected by board consensus, holds a final, seventh seat. Tonight we are honoring founder and CEO Sherrie Coughlin for her creative innovations and genuine community care, and with her the president of their employees’ union, Raul Rodriguez.

And what can we say about the Decater family that hasn’t been said so many times before? Of course, they supply our community with incredibly nutritious and delicious organic food from their Live Power Community Farm up in Round Valley. But we must also mention their efforts to build and sustain community, which has rooted our common identity in what “local” really means. As a member of their farm, I look forward to picking up my weekly box of fresh veggies as Gloria makes her rounds to the drop-off points, and to visiting “our” farm on community weekends to weed and drive the horse team and pretend that I’m a real farmer. We used to use terms like “pillar of the community” and “salt of the earth” to describe people like Stephen and Gloria. By supporting them, our community is anchored in the Earth and its bounty, and the joyful leaping farmer on our Creative Action award celebrates the foundation of any useful community — most importantly, local organic family farms. Our Creative Action Hero community medal goes with heartfelt fondness and deep, deep love to our heroes Gloria and Stephen Decater.

As we honor the selfless contributions of the Creative Action Heroes who cocreate with us the meaning of our lives and work together, may we each give thanks for these, our friends and neighbors, and the amazing grace that accompanies a responsible, caring community whose members have faith in each other.

From “To Be of Use: The Seven Seeds of Meaningful Work” © 2005, by Dave Smith. Reprinted with permission of New World Library, Novato, CA, USA 94949. 1-800-441-2100, http://www.newworldlibrary.com


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