A plan to pick one small town each in the US and Canada, then flood it with donations, volunteers, and support to humanize people across the border. Nominations close January 19, winners announced January 24. The idea: stop the profit from keeping neighbors hostile.
So here's the thing. The loudest forces right now are profiting politically, financially, by keeping Americans and Canadians afraid of each other, angry at each other. So we are going to reject that premise on just one day for just one town. Well, two. Canadians are going to pick one small town in the US, a place that's struggling or with a high immigrant population, the kind of town that never makes the news unless something goes wrong. And Americans, you're going to pick a Canadian town. Once we pick them, I'm gonna call the mayors and ask if we, you and me, can flood it with support. Donate to their food bank, mail handwritten letters of thanks to their hospital staff, subscribe to their local independent newspaper so that it stays alive, help fund the school sports field, or donate to the youth band so they have instruments, or volunteer labor to help with things like legal work for the town. Canadians will go first to support an American town, And Americans, you guys can return the favor. As for which towns, that's where you come in. Do a bit of digging. Find a place on the other side of the border that could really use a hand. Cities do not qualify for this. The places must be named the village of or the town of, not the city of. Nothing more than like 10,000 residents or so. An honor system, okay? Don't nominate your own town. Nominate one from the other side of the border. Myself and some community members will make the final decision on the towns. It will not be a case of the most votes wins. Once you've found a town that you think is right, here's how to nominate them. In the comments section, use this exact format: OneTown, that's all one word, then a comma, then the name of the town and its state or province, another comma, then the reason you think it should be them. That format exactly so that my software can collate them all. And your nominations have to be in by January 19th. Now, are there bigger charities out there that can affect a lot of people? Sure. But I think the way things are going these days, if we can get a nation of people to care about a single town on the other side of the border, then the people who live there stop feeling like abstractions. And maybe the world shifts just a fraction in the right direction. I'll be announcing the two selected towns in my newsletter on January 24th, along with links for you to pick somewhere in the town you can donate to. So, as the gamers say, where we dropping, boys?
Ten times Canada helped the U.S. with its wildfires, instead of whining about the smoke. 
