The Power of We

When we talk about a social safety net, I like to picture a sturdy mesh contraption lined with soft flannel and just the right amount of give.

Of course if we’re talking metaphors, the labyrinthine system of government-funded programs and agencies designed to support society’s most vulnerable citizens would probably look like a snarled up ball of shredded Brandy Mellville t-shirts and old fishing line tortured by a feral cat, but at least it exists.

Or did, anyway.

Last week the vile power lizards cut funding for abused children, rural teachers, and hungry seniors. Their 2026 budget all but eliminates any programs related to preschool education, school lunches, affordable housing, and medical research, as as well as oversight over our food, water, and air. Hundreds of millions of Americans are losing access to basic needs as the bloated poobah and his cronies in rapacity trash the country’s economy like Ghengis Khan on an Adderall bender, only with worse fashion.

Even those who voted for this are realizing that what was sold as “efficiency” is actually a cruel agenda to abandon our nation’s young, old, sick, disabled and poor. It is sadistic fuckery at the highest level, and its consequences are coming for all of us.

The good news is that all social safety nets don’t have to come from the big, bad government. In fact, some of the strongest support systems are built in neighborhoods with small acts of kindness, person by person. With intention and attention, resources can amass and networks come alive.

The resulting web of compassion and action becomes what Martin Luther King, Jr. called the Beloved Community, and we need it now more than ever.

One of the most potent examples of how it’s done is Chatham-Savannah Citizen Advocacy, the legendary local organization that pairs a person on solid ground with someone in danger of slipping through the holes of the net. Hundreds of these matches have resulted in lives lived with dignity and purpose, and most of them will tell you the benefits go both ways.

While it is individuals who are directly impacted, what’s always been astounding to me is how many other people have ended up gravitating to Citizen Advocacy over the years. Becoming an advocate requires time and commitment not everyone can or wants to give, but once you’ve had coffee with Executive Director George Seaborough or sung “Lean On Me” with strangers at the annual Covered Dish Supper, you find yourself looking for ways to be a part of the scene.

That a disability rights nonprofit brings out hundreds of people for one of the convivial and meaningful social events of the year speaks volumes about Savannah’s Beloved Community.