Burlington High School
Burlington, Kansas
Teacher: Devra Parker
What Community Means to Me
By Trae Gilbert
12th
Grade
Community. To me, community is the area [where] you grow up and the people that shape you. It is the place that shows you everything about life.
Living in a small town, I feel community a lot. Driving down the street every day, I see the same people that I know. By being a part of school sports, I feel that I bond with individuals who help make me a better person. I feel when I am out on the football field or on the wrestling mat, I am doing something for my community. When we do well, it makes the community feel better because they know we are playing [well]. Working for the local grocery store I see a lot of people. When I am at work I feel that I am doing something for the community by helping them out. At the grocery store, we sack the groceries and carry it out for the customer. In bigger cities they don’t get that interaction with the people. It just shows that we care.
In bigger cities you are not a part of the whole city. You don’t know everyone in that town. The people you might know are the ones you live around, work with, or attend church or school with. In a smaller town you know the people, you have a bond with almost everyone in that town. In a bigger city you don’t always have the time to get to know everyone around you. In smaller towns, there isn’t always a rush and you have time to get to know more people.
Yet, community in a small town is not always the best. In my town there is not much racial diversity. A lot of the people around here get stuck in their own ways, and it is a big shock to them when they leave town. So many people around here want to get away from here because it is too small and there is nothing to do but, when most people move away from town, they tend to come back. Most of them are not ready for what is outside this little town.
In addition, living in a small town makes being a part of community difficult sometime. In my community everyone knows almost everything about one another. My mother owned a little store in town for a while. A lot of people in town talked to her everyday. When I would get home, she would know where I was that day, or what I was doing before I could even tell her. My parents are also pretty good friends with one of the cops in town. If I get into any kind of trouble, like a ticket, my parents will know before I get home to tell them.
I know firsthand about moving from a small town to a bigger one. I moved to a bigger town two years ago. The school was about the biggest one in the state. I was used to walking through the halls of school knowing everyone and seeing the principal in the halls talking to everyone. When I got to the bigger, school I freaked out. There wasn’t much racial diversity at my old school and there was a ton at the new one. It showed me that everything didn’t revolve around my previous small town, and things are very different in other, larger communities.
Perhaps it was at this time in my life where my nuclear and extended community became more important to me. Being in my senior year, I am starting to realize that family is very important. This is my final year with my nuclear family.
Some concerns I have about national and global community are nuclear weapons around the world. With North Korea testing them and Iran trying to get their nuclear program running, I fear that there could be some person that will get so mad at the United States and just drop a bomb right on us. Someone could just walk down the street and decide to blow himself up and kill a lot of Americans. In a smaller community, the people don’t really have to worry about someone walking down the street and blowing himself up, but living in a small town with a nuclear power plant right outside of town, I do worry that someone could try to do something to that and kill a lot of people around here.
There is little I personally can do to make the national and global community better, but I can to make my local community prosper. If I just do my part and follow the rules, I can have a say. It is just like in a football game. If I don’t follow the rules, do my job and listen to what the coach says, we won’t be very successful. If everyone could just go by the rules and do what is right, I think the world would be a better place.