"That's the question..."

Yup, that's the question: how and when does "the community" get involved in guiding policy and directing basic services of our society?

A friend recently attended a City sponsored event about support for immigrants and refugees. It was held at the King Elementary School in hopes that "the community" in the area would show up. Few did. It was attended by the usual suspects of grassroots or non-profit organizations, where many times a few "community members" basically get tokenized as the representatives.

My friend told me this story while we were at a more on-the-ground community center... where people actually hang out together, and where a City sponsored round table to talk about budgets is an "out there" idea that sounds pretty intimidating and boring. So my friend is a link... but he cannot do this work alone. So that's the question: how do we mobilize and get mobilized?

Yup, that's the question.....