If children will create post-COVID communities, we're responsible to prove that we have a community and a planet worth saving.
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It started with kale and coffee. I began buying locally sourced vegetables in Shibaura House and then I began to enjoy the member’s free coffee brewed from waste beans. The flavor and quality were so good that I started looking forward to my weekly community visits. These small, simple efforts ignited a desire to reevaluate my own consumption and consider how I could contribute on a community level.
As a play advocate, I deal with 3 to 7-year-olds. Bombarded with an onslaught of ads via children, families are targeted into the take more-buy new machine. However, did you know that children naturally increase creativity to balance limited or no resources? I witnessed that during our Cardboard Challenge with fifteen children playing for four hours with cardboard, tape, and marbles. And again during our Toy Cafe where children preferred their new friends over the shiny toys from home. Toys won’t fix a play-starved heart.
I’d like to support a child-led circular economy via simple, frequent community events.
1) Maker Space – Recycled tinkering
2) Toy Workshop – Repair & Share
3) Lending Library – Toys, books, costumes
4) Garden Bazaar – Community discussions
The pandemic of 2020 taught us the true value of human connection as well as the irrefutable impact of our consumer-driven lifestyle. If children will create post-COVID communities, adults have a responsibility to prove to them that we have a community/planet worth saving.
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