Suzanne's Mom's Blog

Photo: Alfredo Sosa/CSM Staff.
Virginia Frederick (left) and Sarah Duncan (center) participate in a conversation table training workshop hosted by the East County Citizens’ Alliance in Washougal, Washington.

Sometimes it seems we have nothing in common with other passengers on spaceship Earth, and it sure is anxiety making. But if we were invaded by aliens from deep space, you know, we’d suddenly all band together. We’d realize what we have in common.

What else do we have in common? What can we build on? Some people in the state of Washington reaiized they could start with trash.

Stephen Humphries has the story at the Christian Science Monitor. “Before the troubles started, Melanie Wilson believed she’d finally found paradise. 

“She and her husband had moved from Washington, D.C., to Washougal, Washington, in 2019. After the cacophonies of the U.S. capital, they immediately felt at home with tranquil views of the mountains, including the snowcapped peak of Mount Hood in the Oregon distance. … The pace of life here is as unhurried as the logging barges wending through its gorge.

“ ‘I’ve been looking for a home my whole life,’ Ms. Wilson says of the town of 17,000 people. ‘I want to make friends here. I want to put down roots here.’

“That was five years ago. Then the pandemic hit in March 2020. Two months after that, George Floyd was murdered by Minneapolis police. And the Wilsons’ paradise, it seemed, suddenly erupted into the kind of rancor they thought they had left in Washington, D.C. 

“Protests sprang up in the conjoined towns of Washougal and Camas that summer. By August, pro-police rallies were attracting hundreds of supporters waving American flags in support of law enforcement. On opposite sides of the street, half as many counterprotesters hoisted Black Lives Matter signs in a clash of highly charged remonstrations.

“The area has been called the ‘crossroads to discovery.’ Today both towns are at the crossroads of America’s deepening political and cultural divides. The bedroom communities are just a 30-minute drive west from progressive Portland, Oregon. A few miles to the east, however, horses, cows, and alpacas graze on gentle swells of verdant farmland, scattered with barns. …

“The protests in Washougal and Camas were mostly peaceful. Mostly. The police broke up a couple of push-and-shove scuffles. …

“Ms. Wilson was getting increasingly worried. Then, at a school board meeting in 2021, the vitriol she’d been witnessing reached a tipping point, jolting the sense of home that had become so important to her life.

“During the meeting, a man stood up and jabbed his finger at the elected officials sitting in front of them. ‘ “Civil war is almost here. We’re sharpening our bullets,” ‘ Ms. Wilson recalls the man saying. …

“She was startled once again by the crowd’s response. ‘People around the room clapped and stamped their feet on the floor,’ she says. ‘It seemed to me, that’s a flashing red warning in a community.’

“After the meeting, she began talking to others in the community about the violent rhetoric. She joined a group of citizens in Washougal and Camas to think about how to counter the civic vitriol that seemed to be tearing their community apart. Over time, she conceived a simple idea: People would gather to pick up trash, together.

“Today, Ms. Wilson is the co-founder and executive director of the East County Citizens’ Alliance. Its volunteers don’t chant and shout. They don’t tote signs and megaphones, let alone AR-15s. What they do carry, however, are seedlings, paintbrushes, and trash bags. One volunteer even brings his tractor. 

“The organization engages in other projects, too, from feeding the hungry to mentoring students. It’s all in service of an underlying mission: Getting people out of their news silos and partisan bubbles to gather together outside – their outside, their gorgeous, scenic, pastoral part of the world – and make an effort to work together and get to know each other. 

“This idea, too, is simple: To fix our politics, we must first mend our culture.

“There are groups like Ms. Wilson’s springing up all over America, in fact. From Wilkesboro, North Carolina, to Madison, Wisconsin, to Compton, California, small bands of volunteers are working to improve their quality of life, not only in their neighborhoods, but also in their hearts. 

“There’s little glory in it. Sometimes, volunteers may even wonder if they’re making any progress at all. But with each small act of kindness, they’re working to weave a social fabric of grace, stitch by stitch, and rooted in tolerance, respect, and faith in each other, as different as that other may be. …

“Ms. Wilson, riding shotgun, plays tour guide to Monitor journalists along for the ride [with Barbara Seaman]. A few days previously, the duo transported braised barbecue to ReFuel Washougal, a program that serves free meals to residents in need. The East County Citizens’ Alliance took a turn hosting a dinner in collaboration with Washougal High School’s culinary arts program. 

“ ‘If you were in my car, it’d be full of traffic cones and trash bags and trash,’ Ms. Wilson says. ‘This is what community-building looks like. It doesn’t look like fancy discussions about policy.’

“But the group’s members did get their start with discussions. About 90 residents, including Ms. Wilson and Ms. Seaman, held regular meetings in 2021 about the culture war issues roiling their schools. The topic of political extremism in the area started cropping up more and more. 

“The discussions soon grew into the organized alliance. People decided they were done focusing on politics as a community. ‘I’m so sick and tired of everybody labeling everybody,’ says Ms. Seaman, the group’s assistant executive director. ‘I just want to get people together to build relationships.’ …

“The emerging alliance needed a project that could both build community ties and be free of controversy. So it decided to start simply, getting people with opposing political views outside, working together for a common purpose in the offline world.

“ ‘Nobody likes trash,’ says Ms. Wilson. ‘They’re both picking up trash next to each other. They’re talking about, “Who would leave a tire on here? … And I’m sick of these beer cans out here. What are people doing?” ‘

“That could lead to conversations about drinking and driving, she continues. ‘We’re all against drinking and driving. They’re finding what they’re against and for, together, in the moment. And if you have to start out small because everybody hates trash, that’s where you start.’ ”

Lots more at the Monitor, here. No paywall.