So many good people are doing so many good things in our county, demonstrating clearly that we want a caring and welcoming future that offers opportunity for everyone.
And it’s happening on the eve of a presidential election in which one of the two leading candidates says that the greatest threat to our nation is “the enemy within.”
It’s a surreal moment. People on both sides believe that if their candidate loses, our nation is headed for economic ruin and political violence.
What are we to do?
As I’ve immersed myself this week in the everyday work of building bridges between people to solve problems, the answer has become obvious. Regardless of the election outcome, we keep doing what we’re doing now, because we must. Here are some examples of that work.
Saturday night I spoke at the annual fundraiser of Kenyaluk Medical Foundation. It’s a group of Kenyan immigrants raising money to build a health clinic in a Kenyan county with a population close to that of Anne Arundel County. It’s a long way away, but we all felt connected.
On Monday I had my quarterly meeting with the Board of Growth Action Network, a coalition of neighborhood organizations with a combined membership of 20,000. We talked about improving transportation services and growing the stock of affordable housing in the county while protecting natural resources. And we talked about the benefits of advocacy groups in the county working together.
Later that day I recorded a Pittman and Friends podcast with Cecily Bedwell, the Design Collective lead who just completed the Draft Master Plan for Crownsville Hospital Memorial Park. And on Wednesday night we presented that plan to the public and heard high praise for how it embodies the vision of bringing people together for individual and community healing.
The last meeting that day was with the organizers of the Anne Arundel County African Heritage Festival, to discuss ways to make next year’s fifth anniversary of the event bigger and better than ever.
On Tuesday morning I spoke - probably for too long - at the second annual Anne Arundel County Affordable Housing Symposium. The staff at Chase Lloyd House have made this an all-hands-on-deck day of strategy sharing with two hundred representatives of nonprofit, for-profit, government, and community leaders registered to move the needle forward. My job was to report on the state of efforts by county government, and my focus was the coalition building that has made us a leader among counties in Maryland.
We returned to the office for a meeting on the status of those efforts with Maryland Secretary of Housing and Community Development Jake Day, a man whose work as Mayor of Salisbury inspired me to believe that it’s possible to get public support for the smarter, greener, and more equitable land use agenda that we’ve adopted in our county. I was amazed at how the Secretary, his staff, and my staff are fully immersed in each of the development projects underway in our county.
And on Tuesday night I had the honor of welcoming 59 new firefighters to public service in our county, at the 64th Fire Academy Graduation in a packed auditorium of family and friends at the Chesapeake Arts Center in Brooklyn Park. They have sworn to protect and serve, and they will save the lives of our residents and visitors, regardless of race, national origin, or economic status. Meeting these young men and women makes me optimistic about the future.
Wednesday was the Community Foundation of Anne Arundel County Annual Celebration of Philanthropy Awards Luncheon where hundreds of donors and grant recipients gathered to recognize the best among us. A highlight for me was the extraordinary acceptance speech by 17-year-old Tara Chase, who was being recognized for her volunteer work with Happy Helpers for the Homeless, a truly grass-roots organization that my daughter volunteered for over twenty years ago.
Tonight I will be at the NAACP Freedom Fund Banquet, to honor an organization that has brought together people of all races to pursue justice for all African Americans since 1909, and African Americans in our county since the Anne Arundel chapter was founded in 1944. The organization locally and nationally has often been targeted by white politicians who felt threatened by it, but like American democracy itself, NAACP has withstood those attacks. It’s worth celebrating.
It’s powerful stuff being done by good people in our county every single day. And whatever results this election brings, we won’t stop doing it.
But the most powerful thing you can do, if you have not already, is to vote on Tuesday. Go to aacounty.org/elections to find your polling place and hours.
Until next week…