Building Unity Starts at the Community Level

 In this time of deep division, national and global controversies take up a lot of media attention. The search for unity within our communities with our friends and neighbors sometimes seems elusive. And so the challenge of how to rebuild the bonds that seemed so strong in the past appears to be an impossibility.  But if we take the time to look in our own back yards instead of at the TV and cell phone screens we can find the answers.

In the 2 years that have passed since the height of the COVID-19 pandemic and our attempt to get back to a normal life, it’s easy to forget the isolation so many of us endured and the people who were there for their communities during these dark times.  There were the service workers who showed up at the grocery store and offered, with just a short conversation at the check-out counter, the precious connection with real people. There were the drivers who delivered us our necessities, and there were the medical professionals who tended to those who were so horribly affected by COVID and other diseases. All of them showed up for us 24/7 at sometimes great risk to their own health. They must not be forgotten.

Maureen Zeller, who worked as a nurse at Good Samaritan Hospital during this time, remembers not only seeing COVID patients, but distressed elderly patients whose home care personnel had stopped coming. It was a trying time, but she recalls telling her co-workers “this is what we signed up for when we became a nurse.”

And now it’s time to heal by joining together as a community. As a first step, the Village of Babylon and the Village of Babylon Historical and Preservation Society are partnering with labor unions, local businesses, volunteer groups, and the medical community to erect a heroes fountain which will serve as a permanent tribute to the dedicated and unsung heroes of the pandemic. The fountain, which will be located at Hawley’s Pond at the foot of Route 231 and Montauk Highway in Babylon Village will be 20 feet wide, 17 feet tall and topped by a likeness of a nurse designed by renowned California-based sculptor Jose Fernandez.

Unity can start in our own back yards. The recent pandemic has shown us that our need for communal connection and support is greater than the differences that so often threaten to divide us. It is important to recognize that each and every one of us can play a part, no matter how small, in the strengthening those bonds that unite us. It matters.

Wayne Horsley

Judy Skillen