Our family lives in a subdivision and our close neighbors have always been friends. When the Covid-19 epidemic hit, a lot of our neighbors were caught in stark surprise as no one ever expected such a thing to happen. My wife and I are retired and living quite comfortably so the change was not nearly as difficult for us.

Funny thing about being retired right now, not a whole lot of difference than before the pandemic. As long as they keep our pensions coming the only real difference is that we now wear masks to go grocery shopping. And oh yes, my gym went out of business, so my belt size appears to be growing.

Neighbors on both sides of our house are young families, and both have very young children. You can imagine how hard they were hit. At first, my wife and I baked a lot more than usual and walked around to the neighboring houses handing out loaves of homemade bread, pies, and other items like casseroles and raw vegetables from our home garden. Before the pandemic, we were already friends but now, we were all one big family. What else could we do?

I remember thinking that this was the difference between other countries and our great nation. We are one big American family so helping out our neighbors was an easy decision for us. It wasn’t long after we began delivering food to our local friends that something wonderful happened. At first, people saw us walking around carrying food and stopped us to talk and in some cases, came out of their houses to join us and help with the deliveries. We made more friends in those first few weeks than ever before. The feeling of camaraderie and goodwill just grew and grew until it exploded.

That was when we had our first “front yard” barbeque. Like most people, we normally had our little family outdoor parties in the backyard but for some reason, my wife and I just looked at each other and knew. We knew that we needed to say something to our community. What we said was, “Hey, are you hungry? Food is ready!”

It didn’t hurt too much that the aroma from the lean hamburger patties was going door to door with its enticing invitation or that everyone everywhere loves a good cheeseburger. This worked so well that we told everyone that we would have cookouts every Friday afternoon and that is exactly what we did. People came and brought more food, and the community potluck was born. Before long we actually thought about buying one of those big garage freezers to put all the leftovers in. You know, the ones with the door that opens upwards instead of right or left. Folks brought so much food that there was always lots to save for the next time or even the next day. In the end, we even started carrying some of the perfectly appetizing leftover party food back to other hungry folks around the subdivision. Honestly, I have never seen so many happy smiling faces.

Not three weeks later, a lot of our neighbors began to offer free services. Charlie down the street was a mechanic and had a pretty good setup going in his home garage and began fixing cars for the cost of the parts. Dave and Shelly were hospital employees and helped out with everything from information to where to go if you just had to see a doctor. During those early days, the doctor scene became a bit unsure, and some people couldn’t even find their regular doctor and needed help. It went on like this for weeks. I couldn’t help noticing that it was growing. What we had started had a huge domino effect and blossomed into a full-service and loving family of unknown numbers.

As of this writing, our community lacks nothing and many people started asking this question. “Why didn’t we do this before?” New friendships were popping up all over the place and one couple who met at one of our potluck parties even became engaged to be married. So, it seems we American families are unified, and love carries the day.

In the end, we dedicated our downstairs study to the cause, and it became the nerve center for what had exploded into the greatest outreach we had ever seen here in our little subdivision. When anyone needed something, whether they could pay or even chip in a little, they got it. It was just that simple. Volunteers came pouring in and nobody here went without. Goodwill and friendship ruled the day and one night, while watching the news on TV, there it was. The story of our little outreach had hit the big time.

Then came the call from the governor of our state congratulating us and asking us to help his office set up copies of our winning system in other nearby cities. This event created work from home jobs for many whose jobs had just faded away goodwill again showed us the way.

Now, we are getting a small salary from the state to help cover the cost of our ever-expanding service center. We are all blessed. What we learned is that love is much more powerful than anything else and unity has always been the answer.