Overcoming isolation while social distancing

A collaboration recently developed among a number of local organizations to promote neighborhood social connectedness.

This included launching the Great Neighbor Shout Out, encouraging people to recognize neighbors for the helpful and kind things they do.

At the time, the collaborators imagined things like snowblowing for others and sharing vegetables from the garden.

And then everything changed, due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Neighbor recognition ballot boxes sit in now-empty public locations across the greater Waupaca area, and plans for a community celebration in June are on hold.

The site for online recognition remains available at www.surveymonkey.com/r/WaupacaGNSO.
During this time of social distancing, those involved in the effort say now is the time for neighborhood social connections.

The Waupaca Social Connectedness Action Team includes Sue Heideman, Patsy Servey, Jessica Beckendorf, Dawn Biba, Jeannine Bode, Garett Colbert, Julie Filapek, Kristina Ingrouille and Aaron Jenson.

The team and its Great Neighbor Shout Out are outgrowths of the 2019 Community Health Action Team (CHAT) plunge on social connection as a health determinant.

ThedaCare’s CHAT is a community initiative to address community health challenges.

Social connection has been proven to impact health more than smoking, high blood pressure or obesity.

Lifting spirits during pandemic

CHAT is particularly interested in promoting social connectedness in Waupaca-area neighborhoods.

Neighbors play a role in responding to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The team encourages residents to think about who on their block might need help if they get sick, who might have trouble getting groceries, who might be isolated with no one to talk to and how neighbors can lift each other’s spirits.

Stories are emerging from neighborhoods throughout the world.

This includes Italians singing together from their balconies, children performing string duets on the porch of a homebound neighbor, teens writing encouraging chalk messages on sidewalks and neighbors delivering groceries to homebound older adults.

They ask what those who live in Waupaca will remember about this time, and what stories they will have to share in the future with their children and grandchildren.

The team says the community is presented with an opportunity to not only recognize their neighbors, but to find new ways to support each other that can be celebrated at a future time when it is safe to gather again.

They ask people to consider what their stories will be and to recognize neighbors for the simple things they have been doing all along and the extraordinary things they are doing for one another during this time.

“It has perhaps never been so true that we – in our local communities, and across the world – are in this together,” said the team.