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Across the country, small groups are working in their own ways to rebuild social connections amid rising loneliness.
It sounds simple – building relationships. But they are up against powerful cultural forces.
By many means, Americans They are socially isolated at a historical level.
They are joining civic groups, clubs and unions at lower rates than in previous generations. Recent polling shows that membership rates in religious congregations are at their lowest in nearly a century. Americans have fewer close friends than ever before. They trust each other less. They are hanging out less in shared public spaces like coffee shops and parks.
About one in six adults feels lonely all or most of the time. The same is the case for nearly one in four young adults.
No one has a simple solution to this. But smaller groups with diverse missions and structures are recognizing that social disconnection is a big part of the problems they’re trying to address, and reconnection is part of the solution.
there is baltimore The neighborhood is trying to create a culture of giving and mutual support, and a pittsburgh The ministry focused on healing those wounded by poverty and violence. In Kentucky, a cooperative is supporting small farmers in hopes of strengthening their rural communities, while groups in Ohio are restoring neighborhoods and neighborliness.
“We need to build a movement focused on connection,” the former surgeon general said. Vivek Murthy told the Associated Press. “The good news is that movement has already begun to build. … What we have to do now is accelerate that movement.”
In 2023, Murthy released a report on the “epidemic of loneliness and isolation”, similar to previous Surgeon Generals’ reports on smoking and obesity. It states that social isolation and loneliness are “independent risk factors for many major health conditions, including heart disease, dementia, depression, and premature mortality.”
Finding ‘Personal Connection’ in Akron
Murthy recently met with groups working toward community repair in Akron, Ohio, as part of his New Together project supported by the Knight Foundation.
At a meeting, Vail Community Development Corp. leaders talked about promoting affordable housing and small businesses in marginalized neighborhoods and promoting social gatherings, whether at a local elementary school or at a coffee shop launched in the former church where its offices are located.
One encouraging development: Families have resumed trick-or-treating in the neighborhood after years of a largely inactive Halloween.
“Things like this make a huge difference,” said Zach Kohl, executive director of The Well. “It’s not just a safe, dry roof over your head. It’s personal relationships.”
Across town, more local leaders met in a community room overlooking Summit Lake.
The urban lakeshore, once obscured by overgrowth, now attracts joggers, fishermen, boaters, and people grilling. The Summit Lake Nature Center offers educational programs and urban garden plots. The lake shore is connected by a public housing development and a recreational trail.
“It’s strategically located to try to give people a place to talk to each other and interact,” said Erin Myers, director of real estate development for the Akron Metropolitan Housing Authority.
“I love that you’ve worked on creating spaces where people can gather and connect them with nature,” Murthy said at the gathering.
Neighbors ‘responsible for each other’ in Baltimore
On an October afternoon on the outskirts of Baltimore, neighbors laid out trays filled with vegetarian jambalaya, beet salad, fresh roasted goat meat and more. A rooster crowed loudly from the nearby backyard.
Before the neighborhood feast, dozens of visitors gathered for a walking tour. Ulysses Archie describes how this small block of Collins Avenue became a center for backyard farming, environmental cleanup, and neighborhood connections.
Visitors saw chickens and rabbits raised by neighbors, and they explored “Peace Park,” built on an abandoned lot, which now hosts food distribution and summer camps for neighborhood children.
“The core of what we do is making connections and making connections with nature,” Archie said.
Neighbors described helping to clear overgrowth and build sidewalks in the nearby urban forest. They described their “intentional” community – no formal events, but a commitment to caring for each other and the broader community, sharing anything from potlucks to rides to child care.
Michael Sarbanes and his late wife, Jill Wrigley, moved into the neighborhood three decades ago. He worked for a long time in youth mentoring and other services.
“We were burning out,” Sarbanes recalled. “We need to do this in the community,” he agreed.
They reached out to other families involved in social justice work. Although not everyone is an active participant in the block, many have joined over the years.
Some belong to local Catholic Worker groups. Others are Protestant, Muslimswho have no religion, “but believe we are responsible for each other,” said resident Suzanne Fontanesi.
Participants include Ulysses and Chrislyn Archie, who founded the Baltimore Gift Economy, a small nonprofit.
Years ago, Ulysses Archie suffered an injury that caused him to struggle financially and mentally.
He joined an urban agriculture program, “put his hands in the soil, and my life went back to normal,” he said. That healing work helped inspire backyard farming.
While Archies appreciated the donors who supported his family during his long recovery, he often felt treated impersonal.
With the Baltimore gift economy, they’re looking for a more personalized approach. For example, a few times a week, they put food donated by nearby organic stores into Peace Park. Participants take whatever suits their diet and needs.
Ulysses Archie said the participants are respectful and do not hoard.
Meals are not labeled “free.”
“‘Free’ is really transactional,” Archie said. “When we offer it as a gift, it’s really relational.” The group encourages recipients to “feel that they have something to give.”
Mike Lewis, 56, who returned to Baltimore after years in California, raises chickens and rabbits in his backyard. The neighbors support him as he takes care of his old mother.
“If it weren’t for them, I probably wouldn’t be able to go back and start my life again,” he said.
Connecting to the land and each other in Kentucky
On another October day, in the small Kentucky town of New Castle, a guitarist played folk-rock classics as patrons lined up under a tented pavilion.
Area chefs serve them smoked brisket with salsa, beef wellington bites, Thai beef salad and other specialties.
But this “Beef Bash” was about much more than beef.
Its sponsor, a cooperative of local farmers who raise grass-fed cattle, coordinates the processing and marketing of their beef for area restaurants and individuals. The goal of the program is to provide reliable income – helping smallholder farmers remain on farm and, in turn, strengthening rural communities.
“With just a little help, people and the land can recover,” said Mary Berry, executive director of New Castle’s Berry Center.
The cooperative has adopted methods from the former tobacco quota system which provided some stability for small farmers. After that program ended in 2004, Berry said, “people lost everything they had, which was the agricultural economy and the calendar.” “We needed each other too.”
The surrounding community remains rural, but less cohesive, he said, because many people travel elsewhere or take up large-scale farming.
The center promotes the agricultural principles of his father, novelist and essayist Wendell Berry.
At the end of the Beef Bash, farmers happily gathered for a group photo, telling stories of tractor accidents and midnight births.
They were getting community and mutual support.
“If we keep our farms going, we’re all winning,” said Ashley Pyles, a farmer.
Another, Kylene Douglas, underlined the effects of strained social bonds.
“Everything is very digital, and everything is with phones,” Douglas said. “We are isolated not only from where our food comes from, but also from the center of life. Fewer people are going to church. Rural communities are facing difficult times.”
Strong farms can strengthen these communities, he said. “Everyone should have the opportunity to live here.”
The ‘block by block’ treatment in Pittsburgh
On a recent weekday at the Neighborhood Resilience Project in Pittsburgh, some residents were upstairs, training for a project to qualify more people to perform CPR in marginalized neighborhoods.
Below, amid the fragrant incense of St. Moses the Black Orthodox Church, worshipers were concluding mass. Next, they set up folding tables for a light meal of soup, hummus and conversation.
The parish is closely associated with the Neighborhood Resilience Project, a conservative social services agency.
They share a simple brick building in Pittsburgh’s Hill District, a historically black neighborhood that’s a stone’s throw from downtown but a world away — long plagued by crime, gun violence, racism and displacement.
The mission of the project is “trauma-informed community development”. It hosts a food pantry and free health clinic. It deploys community health representatives and provides emotional support to violent crime scenes.
“In our work, community building is absolutely the core intervention,” said the Rev. Paul Abernethy, its founder and CEO.
“Social isolation is no longer just the experience of marginalized communities,” he said. “Now it seems as if the infection of isolation has spread throughout society.”
The center serves people regardless of faith. Not everyone on staff belongs to the church, although the church is attracting members.
“It felt like a real community, and people my age who actually want to do things, not just talk about doing things,” said Cecilia Olson, a recent college graduate. “We’ll feed people because they’re hungry, and it’s not that complicated.”
Fidelia Gaba, a medical student at the University of Pittsburgh who was raised in another church tradition, was recently confirmed at St. Moses.
One Sunday, she felt emotionally distant and couldn’t even sing. “I remember being moved by the church,” she said. “What was broken in me was healed.”
Project workers are reaching isolation. Kim Lowe, a community health deputy, helps residents access a food bank, address a child’s struggles at school, “whatever the need may be,” she said.
On a recent afternoon, Lowe met Tricia Berger in the small apartment she shares with her daughter and grandson. Berger said she has multiple sclerosis and struggles with depression and anxiety. Lowe provides practical help, and the two enjoy conversing and watching the comedy routines.
“We connect well over common interests, plus she helps me overcome my loneliness and conquer my fears,” Berger said.
For Abernathy, such efforts exemplify community healing.
“It has to be fixed person by person, relationship by relationship, block by block,” he said. “To be honest, neighborhood by neighborhood, it can be fixed.”
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AP video journalist Jesse Warderski contributed.
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Associated Press religion coverage is supported by the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from the Lilly Endowment Inc. AP is solely responsible for this content.