117. Addressing Mental Health in Small Towns with Monica McConkey

Our guest on today's episode is Monica McConkie. Monica is a licensed counselor with the state of Minnesota. She's worked in the behavioral health field for over 25 years. The reason how I got connected with Monica was that through a grant that she had applied for, we were able to bring her to Oakes, to our community, and we actually did a livestream. So if you don't follow us on Facebook, you would actually be able to go out to the Growing Small Towns Facebook page, scroll back to January and find those live streams, or just, you know, search through videos and you'll find the live streams where we actually shared what Monica shared with us with kind of the broader world. But basically we had a discussion about suicide, suicide prevention, suicide awareness, you know, just how do we, how do we as a community tackle such a difficult topic? Our small town's been wracked by it. And so Monica had actually come and I got to spend this time with her in person. And genuinely, I just adore her. She's doing such important work, and yet the way she approaches it is in such a loving and compassionate and just very human way. And so I didn't know exactly where our conversation would take us. And naturally, because she's so good at what she does, just, it evolved into 4 general things. Protective factors is what she calls them. That all of us need to consider in our own lives because what we decide right at the front, at the top of this episode is that yep, we're in a bit of a desert in rural America as it relates to access to the mental health services, the professional help that we might sometimes need. That's a really big topic and I'm telling you, once you start going down it, it sometimes feels like a bigger thing to address than any one of us can do. And I hate that feeling. And so we really centered this conversation on what every single person, every single individual, every single one of us can do and can focus on. And so I think this is a very practical and really important conversation, and it's just the start. I mean, we could talk about mental health for days, but I'm so thankful for this conversation with Monica. I hope that it provides you and the people you love and the people you do life with in your small town maybe a place to start. It also gives a cool frame for those of us that think of ourselves as helpers. You know, how do we help the people we love? How do we help the people we do community with? So if there was ever a time again to say it's okay if you're not okay, I'll say it here. But really, I just urge you to listen to this. I urge you to share this episode because this is the work, guys. This is what it takes if we want to have better holistic well-being and health. We have to be willing to do these things. And so we also need to look at, you know, what are the capacities within our respective communities to help us create and bolster up these protective factors for one another. It's such a rich conversation. I know you're gonna love her just as much as I do. So please enjoy this conversation with Monica McConkie. Hey Monica, welcome to the Grown in Small Town Show.

Thank you. It's so good to be here with you.

Oh, it's so good to see you again. So for our listeners, they kind of understand how you and I came to meet, but can you share a bit about, and not just your bio, like they can read that too, right? But why are you specifically so passionate about supporting rural communities in particular as it relates to mental health?

Oh gosh. You know, the easy answer to that is my whole life has been rural. I grew up on a farm in northwestern Minnesota. I mean, the closest community was 90 people and all family history there. I mean, my great-grandparents are buried there. It's just like rural is who I am and every position I've held in my career has been serving people in rural areas. And I think I feel most passionate about it, not only because I've lived it, but because I see the barriers and the general lack of services, workforce shortages, you know, all of those things and the isolation that actually sets people up to really need additional mental health support. That's not there. So it's kind of this ironic, you know, two-edged sword. Living rural is awesome. But there's not always help right around the corner when you need it.

Right. So a couple things. I really want to try to isolate or identify through this conversation tools that every single one of us can use. Because I think what's really challenging— and you just touched on it. I mean, we are truly in a services desert. And I know that there are providers that don't like that word. They feel like that's too harsh, but that is what it is. So you had come to Oaks and you did an amazing couple of sessions for us. We have this small coalition of volunteer people that are, you know, trying to tackle to any degree that we can, you know, try to move the needle at all as it relates to mental health. I wanna just tell you this, and you and I haven't talked about this. We had our meeting probably 3 weeks ago and coming off of this winter, which again, for anybody that doesn't live in our area. So Monica, you're in Minnesota and I'm in North Dakota. We really went through a difficult, challenging winter. And again, for people that don't know what that feels like, I mean, I don't even know how to explain it. It's just like constant shuffling of events, constant rescheduling, constant worry and anxiety and doubt and fear, and then loneliness and isolation. Like, you can't go and just do the things you normally do because the weather ruins everything, right? Yeah, really challenging.

So very—

in our meeting, we had heard that at our last city council meeting, our chief of police just took it to the group, to the city council, saying we are getting so many calls for wellness checks.

Wow.

Like so many. Like they said, you know, it's typical. We typically see this when we come out of the winter, but this is worse than we've ever seen. So that was one thing. And then they actually— he shared a story that I don't know what facility they transported this particular individual to, but this person had an acute crisis, right? Like an actual immediate, like, we've got to do something. And they took this individual to an inpatient facility somewhere. Again, it would have been Fargo, Jamestown. It would have been somewhere around here close, right? This person was released before our police department, before our police officers made it back to Oaks.

Oh, gosh.

So when I say desert, I mean it. Like, that's what we're talking about, right? And so in order of meeting Monica, I got to this point where I was almost crying because I just said it almost feels like the more we try to figure something out to help everybody, the more apparent it becomes there's just not enough help. So if you and I—

it was very defeating. Very defeating.

It did for our group. I was like, I just kind of want to cry. Like, I don't, I don't know what we should do. Right?

Yeah.

So if you and I, through this conversation, if we can— okay, I know that there are always going to be needs that require true help, like help, right?

Professional level help. Yes.

Are there? And you know, what are— I know there are. So what are the things that more of us can start doing. And again, it's not so much a prevention. It's just maybe an earlier identification of a road that someone maybe doesn't realize they're going down. I don't know. I'm just trying to say, like, I don't really want to come at this from even the community development angle, because I'm telling you that right now, for me personally, is hard and sad. And it doesn't feel like we're making progress. I know, like, we are in the maybe tiniest of ways, but I'm just wondering, how can we help equip ourselves? What can we do differently? Right.

So can we just exactly start there? Yes.

I'm not saying, like, but the bigger mental health desert, services desert where we all live is a much bigger challenge that you and I aren't going to even begin to address through a conversation on a podcast.

Right. It is complex and it involves even legislative changes, right? If you—

if you—

we want to look at the big macro picture. But you are so right that, you know, rural communities hold answers for their own community. And I think a lot of times we tend to look at the bigger communities like the Fargos or the Jamestowns or the Bismarcks, and we're like, oh, if only we had their resources, but they have their own problems. You know, they have their own set of challenges as well. So the number of professionals in a community doesn't necessarily equate with solving problems. It just gives us places to refer folks that are struggling.

Right.

So when I think about like rural communities and lack of services, you really hit it. It's like, how can we start with ourselves? And then let that like be a ripple effect out. Right. And so when I think about someone as an individual struggling, I think about risk factors and protective factors. Like risk factors are things in our life that make struggles more difficult to overcome. So poverty. Lack of resources, lack of a good social support network, health issues, not having good coping skills. I mean, all of those things are hits for us because life throws us things and we're not equipped to deal with them, right? Which then can spiral into bigger things like mental health crises or involvement with law enforcement or all kinds of things, health issues. And so when I think about how do we overcome that for ourselves and our kids, it's really about building protective factors around ourselves and our families, which then ripples into organizations and communities, right?

Absolutely. Right.

So what are protective factors? I look at 4 areas and we can dive into each 4, each of those 4 on any level you want to. But the 4 areas are number 1, taking care of ourselves physically.

Okay.

So simple, right? Simple, but not easy to do when we're in a position of being stressed.

Right.

So eating healthy foods, drinking lots of water, going to the doctor when we need to, taking medication as prescribed, sleep, huge, huge. Mm-hmm. So it's like taking care of ourselves physically. Baseline foundation for everything else. And that's something that can be taught in preschool. You know, we can really start to help our kids understand that, you know, to be mentally healthy, we also have to be physically healthy.

And, and just basic movement is such a— movement, exercise. Yeah. And so I think sometimes, I know that we, and I included, we overcomplicate the physical exercise bit, like that piece of it. It can literally be— if you just focus on movement, movement, that can help a ton.

Absolutely. Yep. Be out gardening, be out riding bike, kick the ball around the yard, whatever. Play. Just play.

Yeah. Stretching. Just stretching is very good for us, right?

Stretching, yoga. So many options. So many options. So that's like the first. When we're talking protective factors for ourselves, our families, our organizations, focus on physical health. Because we all know when we're not feeling good or we're battling an illness or any type of disease or injury, boy, it's pretty tough. That's like the shadow over all of life, right? Absolutely.

Right.

So second is social, social protective factors. That is really around Surrounding yourself with people that are good, positive role models, good, positive relationships, places where you get support. And sometimes for people that is not in their family.

Like, absolutely. That's, yeah.

Maybe hopefully it's a church or school or an organization.

I'm thinking of another like angle with all of these things. So there's what we do ourselves and then there's, there are the people that might be listening that feel like they have these 4 areas. We've only heard 2 before, but yep. They may go, yeah, I feel really secure in those things. And then that's when our fullness can spill over to others.

Absolutely.

Start thinking— the social piece in particular, I think, is super challenging. And can we talk about this just a little bit? I think some of it is absolutely the nature of the culture in which we live that we're a little more stoic by nature. Right. We have some really strong genetics and cultural backgrounds that play into this. Hesitance, or like, it's a reticence to speak up or to reach out or to say things because we don't want to offend and we don't want to step in and we don't want to overstep and we don't want to be nosy.

And we don't also want to put our problems on somebody else.

Right.

It's like, we'll deal with our own issues.

Exactly. So when you get overwhelmed and stressed, this is even true of me, and I'm an extrovert and I know I need people. Sometimes it feels really dark and it doesn't even feel like something I want to say out loud. So thinking about that, knowing that the people we love, if we haven't seen them in a while, like, what are some of these things that we should be thinking about if we feel like we've got our social connections pretty on point, but we, you know, to then take that community aspect again, it's not like this high-level community development thing. It's community, period.

It's community.

This is how we build community.

It's connecting with people.

Yep.

It's It's noticing that maybe I haven't seen somebody for a while, so I'm gonna check in with them and say hello. It's recognizing the kids in school that seem to be kind of falling through the cracks that don't have a good network, and how can we connect them with peers and groups? It's really battling isolation.

Uh-huh. So, and again, going back to what we just talked about, the wintertime is so brutal.

So hard.

It is such a hard time. I mean, literally it's dark. It's dark when you leave and it's dark when you get home. So hunkering down is just natural. Hunkering down can feel great when it's healthy, but a lot of times it gets to an unhealthy point.

Absolutely.

I mean, this seasonal affect thing is so legitimately true for us.

So true.

Yeah. I think that those are some of the things that we also just need to ramp up in our heads.

Yes. And you know, what's so interesting is just a couple months ago, um, the Surgeon General, and if I didn't send this to you, remind me, I will. Okay, good.

Yes.

He put out an advisory basically naming isolation and loneliness as a public health crisis in the United States, stating that like half of all adults report significant levels of loneliness and isolation. That's significant. And we can be lonely in a group. We can feel isolated in a group. And so it's really for the rest of us noticing, like, who haven't we interacted with for a while?

And your people. You don't have to take this on like you're looking out for your entire community. There's 1,800 people in my town, but it's recognizing a disruption and pattern of the people that you do life, like, that you actually have life with, right? I think sometimes, again, it sometimes feels like, oh my gosh, it all feels so heavy, like the weight of this. And so it's really starting close to home, right?

It is in your sphere of influence, if you want to look at it like that.

Right.

And each of us have different spheres of influence. For some people, it is like us and our friends or us and our family. For other people that are like pastors, it's their congregation, right? Yeah. If it's a teacher, it's their classroom. If it's a doctor, it's their patients and clients. So look in your sphere of influence and how are you connecting? And for yourself, are you connecting with people that are supportive of you? Like, they invest in you, you invest in them.

What information or ideas do you have about internet-based connections versus in-person connections? And then a follow-up to this is, did the Attorney General's Advisory suggests that COVID and kind of the ramping up of hybrid and virtual interactions, is that exacerbating the loneliness and isolation? I would draw that conclusion, but it could be false, right? So is this more of a challenge now, kind of post-pandemic or post-pandemic experience? We all went through that. And I think there are still pockets of people that haven't healed. I've said this so many times, right? Like, we're all it's so common for us to be like, oh, it's fine. I didn't even really— nothing really happened. I didn't experience anything.

Right.

You are kidding yourselves. We're all kidding ourselves if we think that was life-changing.

I actually just had a call from a lady who she still on so many levels, and I'm just so appreciative she reached out, but she still on so many levels is living like the March through June of 2020. Like not leaving her house, not interacting with people. And so it's not over for everyone, I guess, is the answer.

So it's a residual. Whether you feel it, the waters that you're swimming in have it. Yes. I mean, we're collectively impacted by it, even if it doesn't feel personal. Right. So anyway, for sure. So, yeah, digital, this digital thing. Yeah.

So it was interesting because the whole loneliness isolation thing from the Surgeon General, He initially, I think he was before he was Surgeon General in 2017, began to highlight this issue. Okay. So imagine isolation and loneliness already an issue in the United States, disconnection, and then COVID causing like more disconnection. And in some ways it's like, thank goodness we have the ability virtually to connect. But I think we can't, you know, we often see that as the answer to being in a desert of whatever type, right? That we, we have the ability to access whatever we want to on the internet. But there's a couple of things that I see in rural areas that one is not everybody has the actual technology or comfort with use of the technology as our rural populations age, especially.

Yeah, for sure.

Broadband issues are still a very real thing. I mean, there are many in my work, and I work with farmers and ranchers typically.

Yep. Doing counseling.

Doing counseling.

Yeah. Via telehealth.

Well, this is the interesting point. There are some that I literally drive 2 or more hours to their farm to meet with them because they don't have decent enough broadband to have a session, but we're setting services up to really rely on telehealth in a lot of ways, which is great in, in so many ways. It's great because it does bring especially like specialty services into communities where there's not.

Yes. Yeah.

For sure. So some things rural communities do is they open up space somewhere like in a library or a setting like you have. For people to come in and use a computer.

Yeah.

And access their appointments. So that's good. But I, you know, there's still so much to be said for in-person connection, especially when we are struggling.

Yeah.

And I'll just say another note on that is when we are under stress or we're struggling, connection doesn't mean you have to find somebody and then just totally be vulnerable and put all your stuff out on the table. Just connect with them and go have coffee. Just sit by somebody at church. Just go for a walk with somebody. Yeah, you don't have to talk about all the stuff, but just by virtue of being in physical proximity and kind of doing life with someone, it helps because we're creatures that are meant to interact with each other.

That is such an important point. And that right there is what keeps people when things get really hard or really dark mentally and emotionally. That's the thing that keeps us from just calling someone to go on a walk because you don't really feel prepared to talk about it and you know you feel off. Again, I really do have a network of people that I'm just so blessed to have. I can't even— I could cry just thinking about it. Well, I'll call them and say, I'm coming to Fargo, like, some of my besties are in Fargo, and I'll say, I am having a really hard time and I seriously don't want to talk about it. I just want to laugh and don't worry about me, but I just need you. I just need to see you. I just need to hang out with you.

Yes. Connection.

Connection. But this is— I'm not special, but I know this for me. So, again, this is a skill to be developed by every single human on the planet. We can all get there. Right?

Absolutely.

So I think that's super important because if you feel like you're going to be compelled to have to talk about everything, you're never going to reach out.

You're not going to. And another thing that happens are people who in their home environment, there's a lot of stress or there's a lot of dysfunction or there's domestic violence or what have you. I mean, talk about feeling isolating. And so if you know somebody is living in a tough home environment, just invite them to a Bible study, invite them to, uh, an event that the Historical Society is having, invite them. It doesn't have to be anything really big and deep, and it's just community, just being around people that you're already planning to attend, right?

Like, it's a public event.

Yeah, for sure. Yeah. Okay, so yes, so that's two. So we have taking care of ourselves physically, protective factor. Our social protective factor. The third, which I could talk all day about, is our psychological protective factor. And that is all about our thinking. How are we thinking? Are our thoughts helpful? Are they helping us move forward? Are they self-deprecating where we're just beating ourselves up over whatever? Do they see the goodness and the positives in life Or are we only seeing the problem areas and the stressors? Because this is important because our thoughts are direct line to how we feel. Like our thoughts impact how we feel. They generate, they generate our feelings. And that in turn influences how we function on a daily basis, which then in turn usually reinforces our thoughts.

So our thoughts are vicious cycle.

It is vicious or could be really positive.

Exactly. It's a cycle. I shouldn't label it.

It's a cycle.

Right. And the other thing, too, that I'm going to add one thing to this. The other thing it does is it generates beliefs. Yes. Your thoughts become feelings. Your feelings become beliefs. Your beliefs become actions, and your actions yield results that reinforce what you already think you're seeing. It's that it becomes a confirmation bias.

Right.

So, yes, such a fascinating thing. I would love to know from your perspective as a counselor, what are some of the most— just like, and this is a hard question, so I apologize. Um, no, that's fine. But some of the most kind of dangerous in terms of the vicious, vicious cycle. Yeah. The ones that get really cyclical.

Yep.

And maybe don't seem that bad on their surf— on the surface.

Yep.

Do you have a few of those? I'm sure you do.

Oh, absolutely.

Because you work with so many people.

But yes. And I actually do a, a training or presentation where I ask people in an anonymous polling fashion, so I get some good, solid, honest answers, "What is a thought that you are struggling with?" And by and large, I would say 99% of the answers I get are some flavor of, "I am not enough." Oh, nice. "I'm not good enough. I'm not smart enough. I'm not thin enough." I'm not, you know, I'm too lazy. It all boils down to I'm not enough. I'm not perfect enough. I can't multitask good enough with multitasking as a myth anyway. Different podcast.

Yeah, we'll come back to that one later.

So yeah, the I'm not enough, especially with women.

Yeah.

And men, but that really comes through really strongly with female audiences. And then versions of, like, holding on to blaming of other people. Like, my thoughts are all around blaming other people for the way my life is.

Yeah.

So not helpful.

No, not helpful at all. These are both so good. I wonder, and again, it's so important, I think, to recognize societally what might be driving some of these things. And there is no question that social media is an enormous determinant in that first train of negative thoughts. Yeah. Because again, if you weren't ever looking outside of yourself and comparing your beauty, your thinness, your intelligence, your whatever, if you had nothing to compare it to, We wouldn't spend a fraction of it. I mean, we wouldn't spend any time thinking about it.

Right. Like, we're not measuring up. We're not measuring up. And another place that comes from is we often, from children on up, and so when we're talking about, like, building resilience and protective factors, this is a big thing. We hear negative messages said to us or about us from people that we care about. And we internalize those. So as children, we'll hear things like, you can't do anything right. Why don't you try harder? Why aren't you like so, you know, older brother or younger sister or whatever? And then right away in our brains, that's like, I'm not good enough. I'm not good enough. And someone who cares about me, who is my like lifeline is telling me that, right? So I internalize it and it becomes this belief, like you said. And that doesn't mean we as parents need to just be gushing positives on our kids, but it means when we discipline, we're not telling them there's something inherently wrong with them. We're helping them develop habits, right?

That are focusing on behaviors and the negative consequences of behaviors versus internalizing it as a character flaw.

Yes.

Right. There's so much to learn from that. Oh, that's so hard. So both of those, I can see both of those. The victimhood thing is super interesting as well, because anytime we do that, right, we give all the power to the trigger, whatever the trigger is, whatever the trigger is. Another thing I wanted to ask you, because I have personally felt this and it feels unhelpful, and I understand the intent in which it's said, but it feels unhelpful when I'm struggling. Is that tendency to gloss over or to diminish pain because it's not as bad as somebody else's pain. Is that a thing that you see? I feel like that's a— maybe not a small town thing. Maybe it's just a human thing. But I feel like around here, if you're just struggling mentally because— I mean, pick a thing. Again, I don't know where we got into comparison of pain, but that's a thing we do, is it not?

Absolutely it is. And I see that a lot with grief and loss. Like if someone has experienced a loss and not just a death, but any kind of a loss, loss of a job, loss of a relationship, they will, many people do minimize like, well, I shouldn't be feeling like this because that's not nearly as bad as what this person went through. And it's like, our pain is our pain. Mm-hmm. And it's not helpful to minimize it because we're again in this competition and comparison where, well, it shouldn't matter as much as it matters to me. And that's where we also, as support people in our sphere of influence, when we're working on helping and sending out that ripple effect, we need to be sure that we're not judging that because something that may not be a big deal to us is a really big deal to somebody else. And I think about that with kids, like little kids, teenagers, right? Like something will happen, there'll be a breakup, or, or they wore something to school that embarrassed them, or something got posted on social media, and we as adults are like, oh, that's not even going to matter to you in 6 months or a year. It's like, to them it's really, really big.

Oh my goodness. So yeah, I think this is a key part of of self-love, first of all, because it's really, really unhelpful. Because legitimately, we live in a world where people don't have access to clean drinking water. Nothing I deal with in a day compares to that.

Correct.

So it literally makes no— it does no good to me to help my mental health to compare anything that I'm going through to that. And yet that's the equivalent of what we're doing when we just say, well, it could always be worse.

Yes.

It could always be worse.

And if we do, yeah. Yeah. It could. I mean, in some ways, but it isn't helpful for us to be like stuffing down our pain or our hurt because it doesn't meet some criteria.

Yeah. Standard. Yeah. Standard of crisis. Because the problem is that you keep stuffing it down and it will become a crisis. It will become an actual crisis. And then anybody that sees it would say, wow.

Yeah, it's going to come out somehow. It's like squeezing a balloon. The balloon doesn't get smaller when you squeeze it. It just comes out between your fingers. You know what I mean? It's like the stuff is still there and it's going to come out somehow.

Right.

So, yeah.

Oh, so good. Okay, what's number 4?

The 4th protective factor is spiritual. And a lot of times when I talk about this, people's minds go right to like, I need to join a church, or I need to become part of a religion. And that's not what I'm talking about at all. I'm talking about like, what do you believe in outside of yourself? What gives you hope? What gives you hope for the future? What feeds your soul? And for some people, it is like the traditional involvement in a religion. It's prayer. It's reading the Bible. It's, it's things like that. But for other people, it's literally being out in nature. It's meditation. It's listening to music. It's volunteering. It's being around animals. It's different for everybody. But when we talk about people that are struggling and people that are even, you know, suicidal, it's a loss of hope. And so how do we grow hope within ourselves and really cling to that, right? Especially when we're going through times in our life where it seems like there's no balance or we're, we're struggling.

Mm-hmm.

Because we tend to, so think about times when we are really struggling, we're strapped for time, stress is high. These 4 protective factors typically go by the wayside. Like, we don't drink water and eat healthy and move the way we should. We cancel doctor appointments. We isolate. We— our thinking spirals downward to a bad place, and we do not intentionally seek what gives us hope and nurture that and comfort.

You know, so this, my dear, is self-care.

Um, 100%. Self-care.

Such a cliché and trite thing. And you know what I mean? It's so easy to just do the surface-level ideas of that. And what you've just literally identified, it's self-protection.

Yep.

Right. It is self-buoying, I guess, right? When you're struggling, kind of. And again, I think this is so important because we're going to all continue to do what we can to address the bigger kind of crisis that we're facing in terms of just complete lack of professional support and services. But if we can all individually and then within our spheres of influence get better at recognizing these 4 things and offering to go on a walk with a friend.

Yeah.

You know, if you know a friend that you haven't seen for a while and you think, oh, I should just ask if they wanna go on a walk.

Yeah.

We at least help ourselves. Get to maybe a better place than we are. It's better than having absolutely nothing, right?

Absolutely. And it does start with ourselves because if we're not okay, how do we help others?

Right?

Like, if we're struggling and we're treading water and barely keeping our heads up, how do we help others? How do we lift them out of the water? So it starts with us taking care of ourselves and then our sphere of influence and ripple effect out from that.

Is there anything as we kind of wrap? And thank you so much. This was exactly what I hoped we would, would arrive at. It's so interesting, Monica. I, you know, you and I had such a nice chat when you were here, and I talked to you a lot about starting Growing Small Towns, right? This idea of how do we get this kind of thinking into the hands of everybody on Main Street and in our small towns? Because the kinds of things where this tends to come for people you know, attitude and mindset and all of those things, it's often wrapped up in some sort of training that they get through work.

Sure.

That's a lot of times where people get it right now. Granted, there's no lack of resources. I mean, there's podcasts, there's books, there's all sorts of stuff. But being able to process those things in a way that you're doing it with people that you do life with, that opportunity just doesn't really exist here. And so I, you know, I appreciate so much that your entire lens is really about— this is personal development. It's recognizing that as a person, I have agency, I make choices, and I can make better choices when I'm better informed, right?

Yes, absolutely. That's right. It's growth. It's personal growth. It's personal self-care. Yes.

So as we wrap, is there one thing that maybe on that kind of community level, because we do often have a lot of people that are drivers or, you know, dreamers and doers for their communities outside of these things that are very personal and kind of one-to-one connective type things? What is there something that we, that our small communities could do? Is there a step we could take to help maybe even facilitate some of this to happen? Do you have any ideas about that, about what we could try or what we could do?

Well, I'm gonna throw something out that probably is I don't know if controversial is the term, but not comfortable to talk about. Every community has classes, classes in terms of lower class, middle class, upper class.

Okay.

And out of and amongst those classes develop cliques. It's kind of an expansion of what we all went through in high school, right? They exist in community. Those cliques and those classes only exacerbate loneliness, isolation. Who's involved in our conversations? Who's not involved in our conversations? Who do we value as a member of our community and who do we not? I mean, there's just underlying beliefs in communities and perceptions that separate people.

Right.

And it, it adds to the difficulty of people feeling safe, people feeling the ability to be vulnerable, people feeling accepted, wanted. And there's a lot that goes into that. I mean, that's a really big discussion. But I think one challenge for small communities is who cares about income levels? And things like that, standing in a community. How do we begin to erase those lines and really value each other equally regardless of how we dress, regardless of our financial standing, the conditions of our homes or our vehicles? Like, how do we just become accepting of every member of our community? Versus kind of having this class approach.

Right.

Does that make sense?

It does. But wow, what a topic. You're sitting here asking questions, how do we, how do we? And I'm like, yeah, Monica, tell me, how do we? Oh my gosh, help us. Because you're absolutely right. I mean, it's marginalized voices. I mean, that's what it is, right? And recognizing that that is honestly kind of baked into everything. And I don't think our town is worse at it than others, probably.

It's just a—

it's just the way that it is.

It's the way that it is, and it's the way that it's been. Right. And on some level, continue to be. But again, I think it really starts with ourselves and our beliefs about how we perceive people, how we rank or rate people, how we appreciate people, what in people makes us uncomfortable when we meet them on the street? Like, what is it? And how do we start to just be more accepting? Like, our community events, does it embrace everybody? I think about like a county fair. Everybody comes to the county fair, right? Everybody's interacting at the county fair.

Yeah.

And it's like the classes or the divisions or the lines don't really play a part in it. Mm-hmm. But outside of a setting like that where we're all intermingling together, riding the same rides, eating at the same food booths, you know what I mean? That's just kind of a funny example. But how do we take that concept and really implement it in our community where on every committee there is someone that truly represents?

Yeah.

Like, they're—

yeah. Without it becoming tokenism.

Mm-hmm. How do we do that?

Right. It's such a challenging thing. And I do think that it is critically important because, again, as a community development-minded person, our community can only grow as much as the least of us. And least of us, by the way, is in quotes. I mean, like, the person that's struggling the most, that person and that person's life puts a governor on how far the rest of us can go.

Correct.

And I don't mean that— oh, gosh, that could be taken in a terrible context. I simply mean Like, if we have people that are starving, we have people that are in complete poverty, it doesn't matter how the upper folks with more income and more access, they can get doubly as rich.

Correct.

It doesn't make our community better.

Right. Right.

Right. So we do need to think about this. It's super important.

And even like, you have the food shelf, right? Like, food access right outside your thing. So awesome in just meeting basic needs. The next step would be if community members see people walk in and grab some food and walk out, is their judgment, right? That's a part we need to remove, that if we see somebody walk in and grab food and walk out, we're meeting them on the sidewalk. What's our conversation like? Like, oh, you know, how's it going? How are the kids?

Right.

You know, like, it doesn't matter if they need food. Yeah.

This is part—

I mean, it matters, but I mean, it doesn't matter in terms of their worth or their value. Correct.

Yeah. This is partly why, for anybody listening to this, so the food pantry, the food thing that Monica is talking about, this came again directly out of this kind of mental health coalition that we had started through our county health district. I have an open space in the front of my building that's that can be left open 24/7. There's a door that locks to the inside of the building. So we have a food pantry. We have a kind of traditional food pantry in which you have to submit a request, go through a minister's association. Like, it's a— it's— there's a step-by-step process. They do fantastic work. We felt like maybe that process was a barrier to people getting the help that they needed. And so we got these simple wire shelves and we put up two racks of shelving, and people just bring stuff and people just take stuff. And I've gotten 2 notes now. So we have a little Dropbox in our entryway. It was always there, like, if people wanted to drop suggestions off for us. Donations could be put in there too. People are not dropping money in there, Monica, but it's fine, right? It's just— it was always there. And so then we added a little thing that said you could add donations for the food pantry or just tell us anything. So I've gotten these 2 notes. One said, I so appreciate that I can just come in here and take what I need. And I've been able to drop some things off as well. And that was really sweet. And then the other one actually wasn't in the form of a note. The guy physically came into my building and he said, I just want you to know that I've come and I've taken things off of the shelf. And then he offered a service to pay me back for it, which I just said that you do not have to do that. That's what this is here for. We've seen kids pull up, like a brother and a sister pull up on their bikes and they walk in and we see them walking out, like, and they've got things kind of shoved into the front pocket of their sweatshirt, right? And we're just— I mean, it's just so amazing to know that, you know, the stuff that's being left here and donated here is going somewhere, like, immediately. And there's no questions asked and they don't have to talk to anyone and they don't have to do any of that, right? So Yeah. I just wanted to share that that was a model that has seemed to be working really, really well where there's just no barrier.

Yep.

Because that's—

and it's increasing protective factors for those individuals. Absolutely. On that base level of physical health. Need.

Right.

Yep.

Yep. Oh, I love that challenge. I love that challenge. We'll have to continue to think about that as we host things. My own building, for example, you know, I designed it the way I wanted it to be designed. I want it to be a place where anybody can feel safe. But the upscale nature of what it looks like certainly would be a barrier for certain people in their minds.

It could be.

Yeah.

Am I really welcome there?

Am I really welcome there? Right, exactly. And so the only thing that we all can do with that, I think, is just to be cognizant of it and to be more mindful about how we gather people, how we speak about things, how we talk to people. Right?

Absolutely. That's right. Exactly.

We don't have to design spaces differently, I don't think.

Nope.

Necessarily, right? No, it's just thinking more about our intention.

Yeah.

You know, when we say everybody's welcome, do we really mean that?

Yes, exactly. Exactly. Because there are some people that are really hard to be around for whatever reason.

Yeah.

And so we, you know, that's something to think about. Like, what are my own personal judgments and perceptions that are contributing to the marginalizing or the othering.

Yeah, the othering. I love the question, what makes you uncomfortable? And then asking yourself why. Why is it that that makes me uncomfortable?

Yes.

And that is such an uncomfortable series of things to try to challenge yourselves to do. But I think that's really where it starts.

Really important question. Yeah.

Well, Monica, thank you so, so much for your time today.

You're welcome.

And thank you for the work that you're doing. I mean, the fact that you're driving out to people's farms and making sure that they have the access that they need. We need about a million more of you, frankly.

I love my work. I really do. And I feel just so blessed that this is where my career and my life has brought me, that I'm able to do this.

Well, come back and talk to us again soon, okay?

Absolutely.