The topic of "community" is important at Dartmouth. From the day I arrived on campus, meeting the people on my freshmen trip and then meeting my freshman floor community, I searched for an understanding of community. But, what in the world is community, and how do you find it? Was it in the multitude of group meetings I attend every week? Or my classmates? For me it wasn't any of these. I didn’t really sense "community" during my freshman year, not the chilling, shooting the shit, unfiltered conversation, comfortable "community" that I wanted.
I actually didn’t find it until I moved off campus. If you have read many of my post , then you know that the "Pebble", my off campus house, is a pretty special place. It has a backyard, a kitchen and a chest freezer. I will come back to the chest freezer in a bit. Even more special than the place itself, are our neighbors and the people surrounding the pebble - the "Cooldesac" as we call it. These amazing people started a tradition of "family dinners" during my sophomore year. Each dinner was cooked by whoever felt like it, and the ‘family’ invited was everyone people could possibly think to invite. Needless to say, food was enjoyed in quantity, which is where the handy dandy freezer came in.
Every time you deal with dinner + college kids, it always seems to come down to petty splitting of pennies and dimes for chipping in. With the chest freezer and bulk food costs, the cook could just grab food out of the house freezer and not worry about whose label was on the bag of chicken. This resolved tensions, and created an atmosphere of "community" that translated into hours of eating, sharing stories, joking and general merriment during each get together -- at least once a week. From that point, the events grew. We almost never have a group of people who all know each other, and when we do, it is just as well. It took the right place, food and environment to foster my special community. What makes yours?
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