Yesterday, I shared a few thoughts with you about how parades reflect the spirit of a community and how the various units that make up such an organized event – diverse as they are – come together on a particular day or moment to celebrate a common theme or cause. In my mind, parades may be seen as one of several indicators of a town’s sense of community. I believe that a new blog theme – Our Petaluma – has just been created and will appear periodically as one more topic that makes up this blogger’s GLOB (i.e., his collection of web logs: Our Cyberspace, Then & Now, Web of Life, Remembering Bill Soberanes.) Don’t try and figure it out, just tune in each day and read whatever is on my radar screen for that day and enjoy!
Speaking of Our Petaluma and its “sense of community,” tragic situations and emergencies are quite often viewed as indicators of community “spirit.” Shortly after we moved to this historic river town, over a dozen years ago, the manner in which Petalumans responded to the Polly Klass event was another type of SOC Indicator. (Sense of Community) The Gulf Coast hurricanes (Katrina and Rita), last year, and the many ways in which citizens banded together to help one another was also a SOC Indicator. So are the current efforts to rebuild New Orleans. Yes, I know. There was also the other side of the coin. There were also bands of people who behaved in ways that were indicators of a different kind of “spirit.”
Back to Petaluma – Our Community. There is another type of project in the works that may be considered a SOC Indicator. Tonight, for the fourth consecutive Monday, over 20 Petaluma area citizens are devoting three hours of their time to participate in a CERT (Community Emergency Response Team) Training Course at the Senior Center. These citizens represent various neighborhoods that make up “Greater Petaluma.” East side and west side; north and south, and outside the city limits. It doesn’t matter. Bill Paxton, our certified CERT instructor, has organized the participants into teams of four. During each practical exercise, members of each team share their knowledge and skills relative to disaster preparedness. This training project, too, is still another SOC Indicator of how Petalumans are “second to none.”
I’m certain that the viewers of these blogs know about many other community projects and activities that may be considered SOC Indicators. Please take the time and share this information with our readers in the “Comment Section.”
On Our Radar Screen: As the CERT Training initiative moves forward, stay tuned for information pertaining to next steps for a neighborhood to consider. Be prepared to learn about NERT, ALERT, and STAR.