County Engagement
Help Shape How the County Engages With You
I promise this will only take a few minutes of time. The county has a poll out to find out more about how you engage with and learn about what’s going on at the County (or, frankly, if you care). Click the button below to go to the poll.
Earlier this summer Supervisors Rose and McGinnity met with youth from the Boys and Girls Club and 4-H and asked about how to improve understanding of county government as well as how members of the community get information and provide input in local government.
As we’ve discussed here before, I believe civic engagement is extremely important. It is only by engaging with our neighbors that we learn more about who our community is, we build trust, and we build resiliency. Indeed, some interesting research shows that, contrary to our political engagement, civic engagement increases our sense of belonging and reduces our stress felt about the world around us.1
Get involved in your neighborhood. Get involved with your school, your church. Learn more about the people around you and understand our community. By being engaged we’ll feel a better sense of belonging and be more resilient together in the face of adversity.
Oosterhoff, Benjamin. Longitudinal associations between civic engagement and interpersonal needs during the 2018 US midterm elections. Applied Developmental Science. Vol 26, Iss 2 (2022). The corollary is interesting, that “Greater daily social movement engagement was associated with lower daily belongingness.” In other words, political engagement tends to make us more isolated and feel less of a sense of belonging.