What If NDG Became the Neighbourhood Where Everyone Had Something to Give?

 

When we talk about helping people, we often divide the world into two groups.

The people who need help.

And the people who give help.

But I think that misses something beautiful about human beings.

Because the person who needs groceries delivered may be a wonderful listener.

The senior who can no longer shovel a walkway may know how to repair almost anything.

The teenager who doesn't have much money may have endless patience teaching someone how to use a computer.

The newcomer learning English or French may speak three other languages.

The person struggling financially may make the best soup on the block.

The child who cannot contribute money can draw a picture that makes an elderly neighbour smile.

And someone who feels they have very little left to offer may possess exactly the gift another person needs.

Everyone Has Something

One of my dreams for A NuVo World is that we never build a community divided into helpers and helped.

Instead, I would love us to build a community of contributors.

Every person receives when they need something.

Every person gives when they can.

Sometimes I carry you.

Sometimes you carry me.

And sometimes neither of us even remembers which one is supposed to be the helper.

That is community.

Imagine an NDG Gift Map

Imagine if, instead of asking people only:

“What do you need?”

we also asked:

“What do you love to give?”

The answers could be extraordinary.

“I can bake.”

“I know plumbing.”

“I love gardening.”

“I speak Arabic.”

“I can tutor math.”

“I know computers.”

“I can walk dogs.”

“I can play guitar.”

“I love reading to children.”

“I have a car.”

“I can sew.”

“I understand government forms.”

“I make great lasagna.”

“I know how to fix bicycles.”

“I'd be happy just to sit with someone who is lonely.”

Imagine gradually discovering thousands of these gifts throughout NDG.

We would begin to see our neighbourhood differently.

Not as 60,000 people with 60,000 sets of needs.

But as 60,000 people carrying an extraordinary collection of abilities, experiences, stories, relationships and gifts.

The Gift Nobody Asked About

I suspect there are people throughout NDG whose greatest gifts have been sitting unused for years.

Perhaps they retired.

Perhaps their circumstances changed.

Perhaps nobody ever asked.

Perhaps they began believing they weren't needed anymore.

That may be one of the saddest feelings a human being can experience.

Not simply loneliness.

But the feeling:

“Nobody needs what I have to give.”

A wonderful community should answer:

“We do.”

Your experience matters.

Your knowledge matters.

Your hands matter.

Your humour matters.

Your cooking matters.

Your patience matters.

Your story matters.

You matter.

This Changes How We Help

There is dignity in receiving help.

Every one of us will need it at some point.

But there is also enormous dignity in being able to contribute.

So imagine someone receiving free groceries through Feed NDG.

We don't say:

“You are a recipient.”

We might eventually ask:

“Is there something you enjoy doing for others?”

Maybe they say:

“I make incredible birthday cakes.”

Wonderful.

Someday another family needs a birthday cake.

Suddenly the person who received yesterday becomes the person who gives today.

No debt.

No obligation.

No scorekeeping.

Just gifts moving around a community.

The One-Gift Question

So here is today's little A NuVo World idea.

Ask yourself:

What is one thing I can give my neighbourhood?

Not money.

Unless that's your gift.

Something you can do.

Perhaps you're good at organizing.

Perhaps you make people laugh.

Perhaps you're patient with children.

Perhaps you know every plant in Quebec.

Perhaps you're wonderful with animals.

Perhaps you're strong enough to move furniture.

Perhaps you know how to make somebody who is nervous feel comfortable.

Perhaps you have spent eighty years learning things the rest of us desperately need to hear.

There is something.

Everyone has something.

Imagine Children Growing Up This Way

Imagine asking every child in NDG:

“What's your gift?”

Not:

“What are you going to be when you grow up?”

Right now.

Today.

What can you give?

Maybe a six-year-old says:

“I draw pictures.”

Beautiful.

Draw one for somebody.

Maybe another says:

“I'm good at making people laugh.”

We certainly need you.

Children would grow up understanding something profound:

Community isn't something adults provide for me. I am part of building it.

Today's A NuVo World Challenge

Today, identify one gift you could give NDG.

Write it down.

Better still, tell somebody.

And then look for one tiny opportunity to use it.

Don't worry about whether it is important enough.

A community doesn't become extraordinary because everybody does extraordinary things.

It becomes extraordinary because everybody brings something.

The baker brings bread.

The gardener brings flowers.

The musician brings music.

The child brings laughter.

The elder brings wisdom.

The neighbour brings a chair.

The lonely person may bring the most compassionate listening of all.

And somehow all those gifts begin fitting together.

That is the NDG I dream about.

Not a neighbourhood where nobody ever needs help.

That isn't possible.

Something better.

A neighbourhood where nobody believes they have nothing to give.

Because they do.

You do.

I do.

We all do.

And perhaps one of the greatest things A NuVo World can accomplish is helping each other discover exactly what that is.

A NuVo World — creating a NuVo, better world one day, one person and one beautiful gift at a time.