BRIDGES TO HOPE AND HELP NEEDED

By Anthony D. Kopka (Rotary Club Member)

Working with teenagers may be avoided by many, but I had the rewarding experience of leading the Bridge Building Initiative in my hometown. We had brought together adolescents of different genders, race, religious traditions and socioeconomic levels. Our goal was to help them build bridges over what may divide them. What a privilege it was to witness very diverse teenagers come to the realization that they had much more in common than not.
For many it was the first time to be in a group with Jews, Protestant and Catholic Christians, and the non-religious (very few Muslims in town). It was also an opportunity to carry on conversations with youths of different skin colors or with those from “the other side of the tracks.” It was a chance to engage in serious discussions about why people avoid, distrust or fear those with different backgrounds.
At some bridge building sessions the teens were immersed in small group activities that had them acknowledge their apparent differences and role play as someone else. They then fully discussed the experience to uncover what was good or right for making interpersonal connections. It seemed groundbreaking to observe their enlightenment that people share the same basic hopes and desires.
Such memories help keep me from losing hope, particularly in today’s political climate. Instead of trying to get to know someone with a difference of opinion, and then understand why such an opinion is held, we see what many of us learned to scorn in the sandlot as youngsters. We see more and more adults who cannot get their own way and then “take their bat and ball and go home.”
“Special interests” is the political term that demonstrates how far we have moved from the foundational principle of working together for the common good. Instead of bridge building, there is stonewalling, division and isolation.
Working at Daystar Life Center of Citrus County (Florida) is similar in some ways to being a part of the Bridge Building Initiative. I watch volunteers who, for the most part, were brought up much different than many of the people who come for help at Daystar, which is a Catholic social services organization. And there is a substantial difference between what most of the volunteers have and what the clients have. Yet, the “special interest” that exists at Daystar is to keep God’s command in Scriptures: “Open your hand to the poor and needy neighbor in your land.” [Deuteronomy 15:11]
There are many different jobs to do at Daystar, but the volunteers who are most like bridge builders are the client interviewers. They actually sit down with clients and talk. The interviewers hook up the clients with the help that Daystar can provide to them. This may be food, clothing, or financial assistance for rent to avert eviction, for utilities to prevent shut off, for fees to obtain a photo ID, or for other aid.
If those we elect to public office refuse to spend time with those who have the least and need the most, then I hope they would at least sit down with people like those who volunteer at places like Daystar. Then maybe we could gain more bridge builders who value all people as fellow humans, instead of looking for only supporters with selfish, I mean, special interests.