On Keeping Up With the C2C Challenge & Rescuing Ace the Dog
My new community connections really came through for me and Ace #worthit
Okay y’all! I am beyond thrilled to report that I have been keeping up with our community-building quests. I gotta confess though, it’s been touch and go a couple of times. Can you relate? It’s been tough to carve out the time and focus, open my eyes to opportunities right in front of me, and push (way) beyond my comfort zone. Ultimately, it’s been rewarding.
Quests on Quests on Quests
The second part of our Week 2 goal of “bringing remote people closer” was about organizing a virtual meetup with a remote loved one and/or sending them a piece of snail mail. I joined a virtual meetup with my sisters for art time — something we mean to do weekly but don’t always get to. Here’s what I made:
On the snail mail front, I made a trip to the post office and sent a couple of packages and cards to loved ones who live far away. (I had been preparing these packages for a long time, so I was glad to have the push to get them sent.)
Both having that virtual meetup and sending the snail mail brought me genuine joy. Building more of these practices into my life feels like the right move. In the hopes of continuing the effort, I treated myself to stamps with beautiful Dahlia flowers (some of my favorites!) and I started a list of people I want to send mail to. I also started working on a Holiday crafting project to send to loved ones. Yes, I know it’s mid-October and I’m already “behind,” but that’s perfectly fine.
Week 3 focused on the goal of “engaging with your online community,” and we started out with two quest options: to connect with people on Nextdoor or local Facebook groups, and/ or to engage with a creator who’s building community. I ended up doing both!
I also got to do a good deed with the help of one of my Nextdoor connections, we’ll call her Wanda. Would you believe I found a lost dog during an evening walk?! He was the cutest, floofiest, tiniest little thing, and he was terrified. Once I got him to safety, I reached out to Wanda for guidance. She has been active in dog rescue efforts in my county, and I knew she would know what to do.
I was right! She immediately had a lead on a missing dog that fit the description of the one I had found. In under an hour, we successfully reunited Ace the dog with his humans! And let me tell you, that doggo was so so excited to see his family. He had apparently been wandering the streets for hours. It was a genuinely lovely exchange with Wanda and with Ace’s family. And, it was definitely one of those moments that reminded me why building local connections matters so much.
The second quest towards the goal of engaging with our online communities presented more of a challenge for me. I wanted to attend a live event online, but couldn’t find much that interested me in the desired timeframe. So I pivoted to the second option: sparking conversation in a group chat. When that didn’t generate much response, I decided to take a bigger step and create my own online group. I’m hoping to bring together people who share a common interest in crafting, with plans for both online and potentially in-person events. This quest was harder. Finding something to “fit into” wasn’t easy, and timing may have been a factor. But I’m keeping at it, and if my new group takes off, I’ll have a new source of connections and events moving forward. Fingers crossed y’all!
We just started Week 4 with the goal of “engaging with community in person.” I’m looking forward to playing the compliments game and striking up conversations wherever I can. This one is going to take being extra present in the moment and channeling some bravery!
Behind the Scenes: What We’re Learning as Organizers
On the organizing side, we’ve been closely watching the chat and engagement on our Substack. Honestly, we didn’t know exactly how much engagement to expect, but we know more is possible, and we really want to spark connections and foster a sense of togetherness. So we decided to reach out directly to as many participants as possible to check in and gather feedback.
The good news? People are genuinely interested in this challenge and committed to making it happen. The reality check? Many participants are busy, and fitting these quests into daily life is genuinely difficult. We knew going in that we were asking a lot, which is why we structured the challenge to last five weeks — giving people flexibility to complete quests when they could.
We’re determined to focus our last couple of weeks on encouraging participants to connect with each other and celebrating their efforts. Please join us in the Substack chat — we want to hear from you! And, if we matched you with someone, we hope you’ve reached out to them. It’s exciting to hear that many people did connect with their matches and that the effort we put into the matching process is paying off.
We’re also thinking ahead: What next step could participants take after this challenge is over? What could a future iteration of the challenge include? We want to gather reflections and evaluations from current participants, possibly through a survey or short interviews. If you’d be willing to talk with us about your experience with the challenge, please let us know — your feedback is invaluable as we move forward.
One unexpected joy has been connecting with other people doing complementary work or looking for channels like the ones we’re building. To all of you who’ve offered continued partnership, support, and engagement: thank you. Finding like-minded folks has been a lovely part of this journey, and I’d encourage anyone working on similar efforts to join us as partners and collaborators.
Building Community Is Hard (and What We Can Do About It)
The reality is that this stuff can be challenging. There are reasons why we live in our current patterns, and change is not always easy. Plus we face a lot of barriers to building genuine connections with other humans, including time, social fears, priorities, responsibilities, etc. One of the things I hope you can take from this is that while
and I have organized the Couch to Community challenge with the specific, timed quests to give us all a program, even simple actions will help you create positive shifts.For example, in a recent TikTok video, the content creator Beevesoftime offers practical advice for overcoming social isolation simply by building small conversation habits. They provide three actionable tips: (1) add one more step to every interaction by asking a question or inviting dialogue; (2) practice remembering people’s names by imagining scenarios where you’d mention them later; and (3) ask your network for recommendations before Googling, which reveals you’re often one degree of separation from any skill or help you need. The core message is that building community can start with practicing these small behaviors. If we can accept that awkward moments will happen and keep moving forward, these interactions will compound over time to naturally integrate us into our communities.
I found another important reminder about simplicity in an article in The People’s Paper by
called “Listening: A Radical Act — What We Can learn from Listening Circles.” The article talks about listening circles and how they can create a structured space where being truly heard can shift something fundamental inside us. The idea is that when you have guaranteed, uninterrupted time without needing to defend yourself, you drop the performance and say things you didn’t know you were carrying. I believe that we can provide a lot of support when we simply listen to our neighbors, family, friends and even strangers, and hold space for their sharing without judgement or repercussions. Which is to say, we have a lot more to offer than maybe we think — we can simply listen.
Thank you for being part of this journey with us. Building community takes effort, but it’s work worth doing. Keep going, reach out when you need support, and remember that even small steps matter.
Tired of subscriptions? 🙌 Support Work Matters with a one-time donation starting at just $1: https://ko-fi.com/workmatters.
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
RECOMMENDED READS*
We know you love to read! Check out our recommended reads on Bookshop.org:
