Iola High School
Iola, Kansas
Teacher: Loretta Arnold

My Community
By: Kelli Shay
12th Grade
 

Community is the town or neighborhood in which we live and enjoy our surroundings.  Community is knowing the old couple who lives next door and knowing who just moved in down the street.  Community is being able to go to a function and to feel welcome.  Community is our way of life.  Everyone should feel an essence of community whether enjoying living with it or not.

I personally feel I am a part of community all the time, physically and mentally.  Physically, because I am involved. I work, volunteer, and help my community.  Mentally, because I am comfortable here. I do not feel like I am not wanted, and I feel like I can go anywhere within it and people will know me.  I do not feel scared or threatened.  I feel safe, happy, and calm in my community.

There are many types of…communities, and I feel a part of most of them.  One is the world community.  Everyone is a part of this world, and we all have to work together to make our world balanced, even though it does not seem that way sometimes.  One example is, the United States would be in poverty if it was not for world trade.  Many supplies that the states buy are not produced here.  If we did not have something as simple as oil, [much] of our machinery would not work.

Next is our national community.  How I feel a part of this one is by working, and now that I am eighteen, I can vote.  Working prepares me with a taste of how our money system works and how a big cycle keeps our nation up and running.  Because I can vote, I can have a better impact on my country by voting for what I believe. 

I am very involved in my local community so I feel apart of it and not like an outsider.  I know people through school, work, volunteering, friends and family, and it allows living in a community easier.  I will always know I can come back to my hometown, and know what is happening.  I know when social events take place, I know when there is a football game or a basketball game I can attend, I know when the pool is open to go swimming, I also know who I can trust, and who to stay away from.  It is not just because I live in a small town; it is because I am involved.

My immediate family was not always really close.  We never really talked about important things like sex and drugs – my sisters and I usually learned [about those things] from school.  But in a way, we were close. Just because we do not talk about personal things does not mean we do not help each other.  My family has always been there for each other, and I think that is just as important.  When my mom remarried, we joined an even larger family, and I have never felt so welcome.  It is really bad to say that I feel more comfortable around my step-family than I do around my blood family, but they are family.  I could not ask for a better step-family even though we do have really big fights, we have always made up. 

I have extended-family everywhere.  I am not close to any of my extended family because they live all over the country.  I have had aunts who were drunk most of my life, so were in no shape to know me.  It is just the type of family where everyone is independent, and is not stationed close to each other.  I wish my blood family were more like my step-family because they are close.  We all grew up here in Iola and Humboldt and if some moved away for awhile, they ended up moving back. 

My friends are a part of my family.  I look at my girlfriends as sisters that I can talk to and not feel judged. Everyone needs friends like that and I am grateful.  Without my friends, I probably would not have been as likely to go out for sports or sign up for a club.  …Therefore, I would not know as many people as I do and would not be in the state I am in now.  I believe that my friends are the main reason [I am] who I am today and [who] I will be in the future.

I do not, however, feel like I am close to my ancestors.  The only one I know of is Black Beard, the pirate who had a lot of wives and lit fumes on his beard.  It could be where I get the dark hair, and coarse eyebrows, but that is about it.  My family does not even have any traditions that have been passed down from generation to generation, so I do not feel any connection with my ancestors. 

Another community that I feel a part of is the Iola High School Band.  I think band is its own community because we all get along and it is not judgmental.  I am not embarrassed when I mess up while playing music because everyone understands how hard it is to play percussion, or to play an instrument with a mouth piece.  Not only do we understand, we have fun.  When we go on trips, everyone sits close together on the bus and everyone is included in conversations.  No one feels left out.

Community is our way of life.  I love knowing the old couple who lives next door, or the new family who is moving in down the street.  I love knowing if I were to leave my small hometown, that I can come back [and] feel welcome.  Community has shaped [me], and will continue to shape [the person] I become in the future.

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