Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Sustainability of community service

[Audrey Watson (audrey]

A shared work story. 
Every 2 months, our community does a shared wholesale buying coop type 
order from United Natural Foods.  We get organic staples to stock the 
kitchen (rice, noodles, oils, salad dressing, butter, spices, canned 
tomatoes etc), at a much cheaper and organic way than we could 
otherwise.  Then anyone else who wants to order does as well, so we end 
up with a fairly large shared order (we also set out order sheets, so 
people can share some of the items that only come in cases, who wants a 
case of cereal by themselves . . .).  Today, I was one of the people who 
volunteered to checkin the order (checkoff the items, divide up the 
order).   For a variety of reasons, (a migraine, people on vacation 
etc), I was the only person who showed up to do the work.  I worked for 
about 2 hours,  and then recruited a stay at home dad and his 2 kids to 
deliver a couple of the orders, and recycle the cardboard and paper left 
over. (little kids, who would have made checkin more chaotic then 
helpful).    At first I was upset because I was the only one doing the 
work.  Then I stopped and realized that it was just 2 hours of my time, 
I benefited greatly (probably saved $25 myself by buying wholesale), and 
otherwise to go shopping I would have likely spent an hour of my time 
getting to the grocery store and back and shopping, at least.  That's 
down to only 1 additional hour net given to the community.  and about 10 
other families and the common house kitchen benefited!   And last time 
there was an order, I didn't do anything at all, just picked up my items 
already sorted!  And, today I got to see the comings and goings in the 
common house for those 2 hours.  And had a nice chat with the delivery 
person, who is about to celebrate his retirement, and wanted to know 
whether I thought this type of community was a good place to live.   We 
do a natural consequences thing with the buying co-op. If nobody 
volunteers to do the work, the order doesn't get submitted.  Generally, 
that's enough to encourage the people who are benefiting to volunteer to 
do some of the work.   We also tried to set it up so that one person 
would do the frozen and refrigerated, and the rest could wait til later 
in the day when more people are home from work. 

Yes, I'm a single working mother (I have flexible hours so I could take 
the time off to do this  in the middle of the day),  yes, I have to 
balance all the other demands, but I'd have to do that no matter where I 
lived.   And here, I'm not isolated, and am surrounded by caring community.

I think its not a cohousing over-committed problem, I think we are 
reflecting our society, where with full-time work, sometimes 2 parents 
working, we lead incredibly busy lives.  I didn't move here expecting my 
life to be easier, I probably work about the same amount as I did when I 
had a single family home, but now its more focused.  (I tend towards 
administrative jobs at cohousing, whereas in my single family home I did 
everything: admin, garden, facilities, cooked every meal, and 
planning).   Yes, we have participation issues, not everyone works the 
same as others, but we are also different ages, in different life 
circumstances, with different personalities, and different needs.  (we 
do also hire some jobs to be done, always trying to balance that 
cost-benefit equation.)

Not currently burned out . . .
Audrey
Winslow Cohousing,
Bainbridge Island, WA