Ethan Orr's opinion: Congress acts, but the real solution lies with us

‘All of us might wish at times that we lived in a more tranquil world, but we don’t. And if our times are difficult and perplexing, so are they challenging and filled with opportunity.”

— Bobby Kennedy

Next year is our year of opportunity, not just because 2020 was challenging, but also because it resides in the American ethos to overcome. The question isn’t will we overcome but rather how will we overcome? Alexis de Tocqueville was amazed by the fact that “Americans of all ages, all conditions and all minds constantly unite.”

They united for a purpose, whether it be to build a hospital or create a product. The strength and success of our community lies not in looking to a fractured and divided government for leadership, but in instead to citizens taking the lead.

As the federal government works on another massive stimulus package financed on dubiously sustainable debt, I would submit that you and I acting in concert, with compassion, can more profoundly change the life of our community than a bureaucracy thousands of miles away, no matter how well-intentioned it may be.

We all know people who are hurting as a result of the pandemic, the shutdowns, the injustice, the riots. Businesses are closing; children are struggling, and many people are alone and afraid. Families worry about food and housing.

As challenging as our times are, opportunity does abound. The opportunity to create solutions resides with us as individuals.

In the ’90s when I worked for the city of South Tucson, the community had a problem with graffiti. At the time it was among the worst in the state — so bad that it overwhelmed the city government.

Then one day an individual said, “I will find a solution for my block,” and he picked one wall and said, “That wall is mine.” For the next several weeks if there was graffiti on it, he would paint it. It would seem every night the gangs would tag it, and the next day he would paint it again, until one day the gangs gave up.

Then the resident, not the government, said, “I own that wall as well,” and started painting a second and then a third wall. As a result of his leadership, other people joined him. Soon entire blocks were graffiti free and eventually the entire city. The painting was coordinated with the government; the paint was donated by local businesses, but the solution was started by people in the neighborhoods.

The success in addressing a small issue like graffiti led to success and focus on larger issues such as homelessness, prostitution and drug use, and helped restore economic vitality to a proud, cultured and historic community.

Certainly, the problems that our community face are much larger and more complex than graffiti, but they are not intractable. Everyday people in our community see and solve problems, and without fanfare they change lives.

The Opportunity Center is one such local example. In 1953 Ray and Alice Chastain founded the Gospel Rescue Mission, dedicating their lives to helping the poor in our community.

In 2019, with support from local leaders Humberto and Czarina Lopez, they created a one-stop center of opportunity to help the homeless with shelter, health care and job training, providing people a sense of dignity and hope. Today the Opportunity Center works with local police to move people off the streets, out of addiction and into employment. It is an example of government, business and people working together to make our community better. And the solution started in the mind of a single person.

As individuals, we are that solution. When we see families struggling to eat, help them; bring them food or donate to the Community Food Bank. When we hear about children dropping out of school, find ways to support a youth organization, and take five minutes to encourage that child.

Many of our local businesses are hanging on by a thread. If you like the concept of local businesses, shop there, eat there, order out from there, and please tip well.

The point isn’t to be prescriptive, but to ask, one person to another, please join me as we purpose to make 2021 the year of community and of individuals working together to create the thousands of solutions, which will make our community a better place.

Americans as individuals are infinitely innovative and as a whole give more than $1 billion a day to charity. Ultimately, the path to a better community does not reside in City Hall or even in Congress, but in us.

An old proverb says, “Acts of kindness never die.” Let’s choose to make our community a better place.

In 2021 join me in picking just one charity, school or person, and finding a way to help them.