When community groups send out appeals for help, convince local merchants to volunteer supplies and staff the tables providing coffee and donutsfor the volunteers, we create the social capital which the political scientist Robert Putnam has identified as crucial to healthy societies. (His famous example was that of the choral societies of northern Italy).
And I was told that teachers cooked food to sell after church, supporters drove 200 miles to pick up donutsfor bake sales, they even raffled off a goat -- (laughter) -- is that right?