This is probably something everyone knows about. At least in some form or another, a work party isn’t a new or transformationally eye-opening experience. But that’s still how it felt at Estelle and Daimen’s last week.
“I need to clear 1.5 acres of land for my farm,” read Estelle’s Facebook event, “and I need some help!” The task at hand was to cut down and chip a few hundred small alder trees in order to make room for the land to be plowed and planted. It was a big job, one that would be made possible by the staggered arrivals of about fifteen friends, complete with dogs, overalls and chainsaws.
I was in the thick of it, soaking in the nostalgia of gathering firewood as a family when I was a young kid. The only major difference was that instead of chocolate (my mom’s tradition), we shared some cold beers while we took a break. Other than that, with the sound of chainsaws, the sway of leaves, the smell of freshly cut wood; it was all familiar.
Except it wasn’t quite. I could never have imagined fifteen young adults getting together to pull this kind of job off—the amount of land we cut through in a few hours was shocking. The barbecue afterwards was like any friends’ get-together, except I couldn’t stop looking around and remembering that these people had just voluntarily gotten together and hauled around wood all afternoon.
I thought it was the coolest thing.
Of course I’ve heard of things like barn raisings and the 1790 Fête de la Fédération, but they’ve always been distant pieces of another culture, not up close like the weight of the alders and the smell of the barbecue. These friends weren’t even fazed by the work they’d done. They talked about other work parties the weekends before.
I got out the audio recorder to ask more about their feelings towards the work party, which I thought was going to be extremely interesting until they all said the same thing. They liked helping their friends, they benefited from the reciprocity of work-party culture, and they placed a high amount of value on the shared meal afterwards.
Like I said, probably everyone knows about this kind of thing. I hope they do. I hope people dream up big projects and connect with their communities to make the impossible into reality. I hope they dare to ask for help. I hope they show up when it’s their turn to lend a hand.
We can accomplish a whole lot when we work together. Just ask the alders.
