From the Farm to the Pitch, Volunteers Jump In
Good fences make good neighbors, the proverb goes. But what happens when a wildfire has ruined the fences, along with everything else in its path?
If you’re a farmer on the American prairie, you are glad there is nothing left to block your neighbor. Especially if he is delivering a truckload of hay to you. This has become a ritual, and played out again last month after fires swept western Oklahoma. Among the worst casualties of fire are the pastures cattle rely on for grazing. Rebuilding the barns — and the fences — can wait. But the cows have to eat.
And so the trucks roll in, some from hundreds of kilometers away. They come unsolicited, and they come without charge , driven by people like Levi Smith and his brother, Blake, who know both sides of the arrangement. Their land burned last year, but their cattle survived thanks to strangers’ donated hay. So when disaster struck this time, they loaded up two tractor-trailers and drove 160 kilometers to the town of Vici.
“When these loads of hay come in, it gives you hope,” Levi told The Times.
It was a longer haul to Oklahoma for Matt Schaller, who brought hay 1,800 kilometers from Michigan. He made similar deliveries last year after fires in Kansas. “It’s just what you do,” he said.
Leo Hale, who was helping distribute hay from the rodeo grounds in Vici, said these volunteer efforts were more effective that the alternative. “If we waited on the government, we wouldn’t have it,” he said.
That sort of thinking carries weight in Alaska, where the vastness of the land can limit government responsiveness. Some residents in Anchorage, a city of about 300,000 people, are dealing with a soaring crime rate themselves. Car theft in particular has exploded, and Floyd H. Hall, a 53-year- old snow-removal worker, has turned that problem into a volunteer sideline.
He said he spends four to six hours a day working with others who track stolen vehicles, and has found about 75 so far this year. He has been shot at by a thief, and the police say he and others like him should not be putting themselves in danger. But he is a hero to many in the community, though he doesn’t see it that way. “Anybody can do this — I’m not special,” Mr. Hall told The Times.
Community problems are not always as dire as crime or natural disaster. Sometimes it’s a community’s spirit that’s at risk. That was the case in Kongens Lyngby, Denmark, in February when its century- old soccer club, Lyngby B.K., nearly folded.
The team was out of money. Some players had left; others were holding on as long as they could. The end was near.
Birger Jorgensen, the team’s sporting director, made a midnight call to Mads Byder, whose public relations company had once put its name on the team’s blue jerseys. “I heard you have a big blue heart,” Mr. Jorgensen told him.
Mr. Byder wanted to give something back to the club in return for a lifetime of memories. “I was ready to pay for that,” he told The Times. But he couldn’t do it alone. In a flurry of text messaging, he scrambled together the Friends of Lyngby, a group of small investors willing to take a chance without even seeing a budget.
It is no wonder the players often talk about family when they talk about their team. “You can’t ask a Danish guy to explain the word hygge,” said one, Thomas Sorensen. “It is hard to put it into words, but it is where you feel you belong.”