run the damn ball.

[if you are reading this there is basically no chance that you don't know what the charity bowl is, how unbelievably amazing the total was this year, and how spencer put a period at the end of this week's sentence. but in the off chance you don't, click the links in this paragraph, you're gonna need the background info for the rest of this to make sense.]

one. point. three. seven. MILLI. from about 6,000 donations. all because a bunch of people who became friends through sports - even the ones of us who don't even watch football, because there are quite a few of y'all - cared enough to step up big. it's something i'm so proud to chip in on every year and in this season of horrors, it was a huge spiritual balm to be part of a huge wave of concrete action. but spencer is right. the charity bowl this year had a kind of "put on one big show to save the theatre from the evil developer" energy. that's very important and very necessary. so what next? how do you keep the theatre running and safe?

i have been a junior league lady for about 10 years now. the league is a very different place than it was when my mother was my age - i know this is true because some of our older sustainer members looooooove to let us know exactly that when they call to tell us we're too liberal for them now. i have learned a lot from the league - everything from how to run a good meeting to an authentic coalition building training with a woman who worked on truth and reconciliation post-apartheid in south africa. (no kidding, one of the most useful things i have ever learned in my entire life.) but league life has also shown me the value of knitting together a hundred little contributions, each according to what she can, into something that makes a huge difference in a community.

that's what spencer means when he tells us to run the damn ball. this doesn't require the money cannon to go brrr. (i mean, if you got it, let it rip, that helps a ton. especially when it comes to food insecurity causes.) you can pick a thing in your town that needs love, and you can point a small monthly donation at it. you can offer in-kind or volunteer support. you don't have to reinvent the wheel. odds are, some group in your town is already working on your thing. if not, who better than you to get it started?

i live in mobile, alabama, my beloved and vexatious hometown. i love this place, but damn, it has some problems, and i cannot solve them all. so i have picked a couple. here's my run the damn ball strategy:

• prism united. this cause is my absolute heart. prism takes care of our area's LGBTQ+ youth through activities, social opportunities, and unconditional love and support. their team is the real deal and they are unwavering in their resolve to love our babies. i pour all the money i can spare into this one.
• mobile baykeeper. at least 29% of why this place is so wonderful is the bay. it is an ever-increasing challenge to protect it. i donate, and now that i'm not dragging my tailfeathers around this country for a role that did not appreciate me, i am thinking of joining the neighborhood cleanup walks. bonus points for fresh air, sunshine, and maybe making a friend.
• love all pantry at central. my mother was a progressive presbyterian. she was convicted to do good through her faith, and this was her church when she was well. i was baptized here, but confirmation classes conflicted with my ballet classes and i chose ballet. as the congregation dwindled - we can talk about my feelings about left-leaning christianity letting itself get beat in this market through apathy another time - the minister looked at this massive building he could not fill and said "let's be important to this community." there's a preschool, coworking space, maker space, art studios, and the best thing they do: a full-service food pantry that serves 2500 families a month. this is a standing small monthly donation for me.

i also give monthly to other groups, including another excellent commentariat common cause, st. john's center (shout out to dawn, my wonderful friend who leads their financial team and inspires me to be a little bit better and a little bit kinder to myself all the time). but this is NOT a money thing. you can give time. you can give support by talking about fundraisers or sharing links. i have been broke as a joke more than a few times in my life, and one of the things that made hard times easier was working together with neighbors and friends to try to fix a problem.

in fact, i am going to propose that the only way out of this mess is by working together, in real life, with good people. that mawkish quote about "goodness being everywhere" is actually correct, though not for the reasons most people who use it think. if you look at history, even when the big picture was so dark you weren't sure if it would ever be light again, people MADE it light again. they banded together, in community, to find joy and purpose by being part of the solution.

and if inspiration from the past isn't your jam? that's okay. part of the motivation of the charity bowl is donation in the name of spite. i myself scrounged up extra money on the last day because i didn't want a school i attended for two damn semesters to finish behind a college i find obnoxious that doesn't even have football, just a $100,000+ hippo the president of the school bought while drunk right before he jacked everyone's tuition. [the beloved has a history with this school that is not mine to tell, but i will never stop alternately being angry with them and ridiculing them over it.]

we work together against everything that's happening in order to fix things, but we also work together to unite as a giant living breathing fuck-you to the opposite number. they are venal, spiteful, hateful, and violent, but they are also just the softest saddest most unbelievably weak losers you could ever imagine. and you beat these pathetic bastards by punching them repeatedly in the nose and rubbing in their faces how completely sad, unpopular, and bitch-made they are.

that's why we take our little hammers out into the world and beat on the bastards until they crack and crumble. the charity bowl is our sledgehammer, sure, but the real force of all of us is our run game, in our communities, with our friends and neighbors. it's food for the soul and fuel for our futures.

run. the. damn. ball.