The economic and social changes that have come to our community in the last year are breathtaking.  The pain and dislocation is almost unimaginable.  We know of the many personal challenges individuals and their families are facing, the decisions people are forced to make, and their individual struggles. The challenges caused by this economic dislocation are a collective problem.  When one-fifth of the our workforce is unemployed, we all have a problem. The flip side of a problem is a challenge.  These are challenges that come to our community.

• Unemployed people have the challenge of restoration.  We have skills and talents to use to support ourselves and our families.  But the places and ways we have used those talents have been taken away from us.  We, just like the employers who see their businesses slipping away,  need to find our emotional and spiritual footing.  We need to meet immediate financial challenges.   We need hope.  We need to understand and believe that we are valuable people, and an asset to our community.  We need a way to contribute to our families, and our community.
• Employed people face the challenge of sustained compassion.  We also face the fear of losing our jobs, and our security.  We have opened our hearts and wallets in public and private ways, in food drives, and in personal acts of kindness.  But we also ask what we can do that not only meets immediate needs, but also builds up and sustains those in our community who are suffering.  We need a way to contribute to the hurting members in our community that is direct, effective and holistic.
• Community institutions face the challenge of leadership.  In different ways, businesses, social agencies, churches, and government bodies have dual mandates:  to maintain their own stability, and to build up the community.  The economic crisis has stressed these institutions as well.  But the burden of leadership is unavoidable, and challenges our community institutions to engage in collective reflection that stimulates new ways of thinking, and forges new ways of collaboration.

We might find the fine balance between acknowledging our very real hurts and struggles, finding appropriate ways to accept help from outside Elkhart County, and taking responsibility to use our own creativity and strengths to find a solution as we face these two questions:

Will we accept responsibility for ourselves, for our neighbors, and for our entire community?

Can we find ways to tap our own resources to solve our own problems?

Elkhart County Works Together answers these questions this way:

We must!    We can!