Melodie Rae Storey
When I moved back to my hometown five years ago, a wise friend gave me some sage advice: where there are endings, look for joy, and where there are beginnings, wait patiently.
Patient indeed – it took more than a few years of Nelson living before I felt like I had a group of friends and connections in the community. It is hard being new to town and we all know the feeling, right? At the same time, the Canadian government was making efforts to settle and integrate 3,600 Syrian refugees and they were slowly starting to trickle into the interior. UBC researchers came out with a study showing that rural immigrants often struggle with feeling connected to their adopted communities.
Meanwhile, the Nelson Public Library was writing a new strategic plan and one of their key focus areas was fostering space for the community to connect. All these things came together to provide the impetus for hosting a monthly multicultural potluck at the library as part of my job as the Literacy Coordinator.
I tried to find other libraries that were doing something similar so that I could copy, paste and steal (as librarians do) their successes and avoid their mistakes. Whistler Public Library gave me brief and sensible advice: “Explain what a potluck is in all your advertising.” You can imagine they learnt this prudent piece of wisdom the hard way. We have had a year of potlucks now and there was only one potluck were we didn’t have enough food. As these things go, everyone that evening decided to bring only gourmet juices and desserts but is that really the worst thing in the world? We certainly made do.
And that memory is balanced with another evening when we had so much food we didn’t have a place to put it all. There have been some memorable dishes over the year: Babas donated a heap of streaming hot samosas and Outer Clove brought a few trays of completely delicious fish tacos. One of my favourite dishes was a plate of deviled eggs that were shaped into tulip flowers (which I tried to recreate for a dinner party later that week with disastrous results).
Most of all I remember the connections that were made – to each other and to the community. After one potluck, a group of newcomers even went searching for a coffee shop to continue the conversation. Though the unpredictable reputation of potlucks held true: for whatever reason only one couple showed up for one of the evenings. Each potluck there was a local presenter on some aspect of Nelson culture to connect with. I am pretty sure I learnt more things about Nelson from the Chamber of Commerce presentation than spending a childhood here. Other memorable presenters include the cast of the Pantomine giving a teaser, the archivist from Touchstones explaining the crazy history of this town, an Elephant Mountain Literary Festival representative giving a who’s who of local authors, and the Living Garden gardeners telling us what grows in Nelson soil.
The potlucks will start up again in October and if you are a long time local, please consider joining us. I would love to see more locals come so that the newcomers have someone to connect with. Perhaps you might even learn something new about your town. For those of you who have moved to Nelson this summer, I can’t guarantee that everything will go smoothly, but I promise that we can’t wait to meet you! The library is a place where all stories are welcome, even beginnings.
Melodie Rae Storey is the Teen and Literacy Coordinator at the Nelson Public Library. Check This Out runs every other week.