How a small personal celebration blew up into a delightful community recognition event

I have run this community page on Facebook social media platform since 2016. It is all volunteer. Rules are pretty clear: Don’t be a jerk. Don’t cuss. Don’t snark. Don’t talk politics or religion. And keep it about the Palmer area. The page receives at least 50 -100 requests a day to post. At least 25% are rejected because they don’t fit the guidelines (see above.) It is a public group with 47.6K members which are vetted with a series of questions, making sure that people understand the guidelines (see above). And all posts are reviewed before approval (this approval started during the covid chaos because everyone was a bit crazy at the time.)

Sunday night—A mom posted a beautiful picture of her son who was graduating from high school. Her boy is autistic. And her son loves motorcycles. The mom asked plainly if anyone would give him a surprise ride on “a cool, big Motorcycle” for a few minutes? This was posted simply on the Palmer Alaska Buzz on Sunday evening. As the administrator for this FB group, I approved the post and thought, this is a nice posting—and I went on about my life. Immediately I was alerted to viral postings on the Palmer Buzz. (And frankly viral posts are sadly, usually about something bad. So I am wary of any alerts.) Within an hour, there were hundreds of responses. It was shared dozens of times along with nearly 2,000 reactions, comments and views. It is evidence about how a small personal celebration blew up into a delightful community recognition event! The organic event of the boy on a motorcycle will happen on Tuesday evening downtown about 6 p.m. We will see how it evolves but I think I can safely say it will be wonderful for everyone involved. I’ve heard there may be motorcycle clubs, confetti, snacks, and great applause! What a town we live in.

Palmer’s joyful, small celebrations are contagious—If you think about the variety in last few months, there are many examples: Drive Your Tractor To Work Day; Jessica’s Neighborhood Birthday Party; Ride Your Bike Day; Local author Eowyn Ivy’s new book publishing; Sidewalk plant sales; Pope parties, Easter egg drop up and down main street; Musk Ox Farm mother’s day; Hatcher Pass Painting; Bike Blessing; Community Clean Ups. These all showcase human creativity, self-expression, community, and celebration.

History Nights; Trivia Nights; Open Mikes; Vintage Fair; Health Fair; Aviation Fair; Zip-lining; Writer’s Story Nights; Bands on weekends at the Palmer Ale House (along with crazy line dancing); Silent Book club night at the library!; Local bookclubs all over town; Quilting events; Art Cafe projects and openings with art shows; Walk a Mutt at the animal shelter; Recycling parties; The Little Palmer Art Gallery; The garden at the Museum; Beginning of Community Gardens. There is a great power in feeling part of something bigger than yourself, surrounded by your neighbors.

Annual meetings, game nights, Library fundraisers, Faith events; Knitting groups; Car rallies; Bingo; Concerts with the local chorus, orchestra or trios. School events are too numerous to mention. Bar theme nights; Hang Gliding; Rock painting clubs; new sandwich debut at the Bleeding Heart Brewery or Matanuska Brewery's new summer menu; Hikes and Runs and Discovery Walks. Cottonwood Bud Collections, Mushroom foraging; Dance Walks; Friday Flings; Neighborhood garage sales become a party and someone yanks out the grill and hotdogs. Lemonade stands haven’t debuted yet this summer but they were frequent last summer.

If this list seems rather long, it is because it is. It is constantly changing because much of these things aren’t huge planned events. They are in response to the weather, or the desires of a small group of people to include the world in their joyful undertakings. Sometimes these are “one and done” and sometimes these events become in-bedded in our town’s yearly progression.

The Value of Collective Community Joy—I have written about this many, many times. It is the one very special sauce that permeates Palmer. It is not bottled or available from Amazon. It is instead a generosity of spirit that allows people to open doors, return grocery carts, be kind at stoplights, help someone who falls, helps someone find their keys, shares the last dozen eggs in the store, catches the stray dog and posts its whereabouts kindly, This is also the engine of volunteerism which fuels the Search and Rescue, Explorers, Recycling, community patrols, Rotary, Lion’s Club, Faith groups, Animal Rescue groups, Girl Scouts and Boy Scouts, Future Farmers of America (FAA) Youth groups and various Clean up groups.

Communal Kindness inspires Contagious Kindness—This is also clear. It is simple: Once one person is nice, another becomes nice. Niceness becomes a good thing. Likewise one act of rage inspires respondent acts of anger. And then rage and meanness become the norm. I am not trying to be a Sunday school teacher here. I am just attempting to show how our community is affected by kindnesses and positive attitudes. If we snarl and complain and whine, that infectious attitude is spread and suddenly it is the way we are. We have to fight against this kind of selfishness, mean spiritedness, criticism and eventual melancholy. It kills joy. “The yearning to partake of community joy is a primordial part of us, and needs to be refreshed, not diminished.”

Barbara Hunt is both Palmer writer and artist. She works hard to keep the robust pulse of Palmer, Alaska. She shares the good stuff in the weekly Palmer Alaska Buzz Column in the Mat Su Valley Frontiersman and daily on the Palmer Alaska Buzz Facebook Group.. Contact at bhunt@mtaonline.net or text 907.315.3222.