A few years ago, Scott, one of Patchwork’s morning regulars, appeared with a plastic toy version of Lucy from the comic strip Peanuts who was sitting at her psychiatry booth. The classic “Psychiatric Help 5 Cents” appeared on the banner above Lucy’s head as well as on a separate wooden plaque.
Scott presented both items to Shawn in recognition of the hours she spends listening to everyone who comes through Patchwork’s main office in the mornings. She hears about their difficulties finding housing, impending utility shutoffs, and legal problems. She hears about relationships that have fallen apart, estranged children or friends, abusive partners, pressures to move, struggles with substance abuse, anxieties about new jobs, recurring health issues, and hoped for breaks that have yet to materialize.
Scott and many others have long joked that Shawn is like Lucy—providing cut-rate, faux “therapy” for people who just need someone to talk to. The wooden plaque sits on Shawn’s desk today, and people regularly point at it and smile. Every so often, someone will hand Shawn a nickel for her “psychiatric help.”
A few months ago, a little, heart-shaped glass jar also ended up on Shawn’s desk, so she started putting the nickels and other change into it. Then one morning someone asked Shawn if she had a bus token they could use. She looked at the jar and realized that there was enough money in it for a bus ride, so she gave the change to the person asking.
The next time someone handed her a nickel, she told them that she’d decided to let the money build up in the jar until there was enough for bus fare. Once there was enough, she would give it to the next person who asked for a bus token. The person liked the idea and decided to add another nickel.
Moments like this happen regularly around Patchwork. It’s what makes Patchwork different. It’s what makes us us. I thought of these moments and about the impact that Patchwork makes on the world when I read an essay by Dr. Clarissa Pinkola, an American poet, artist, and psychoanalyst.
The following excerpt from the essay gets at my sense of why all of us at Patchwork come in week after week to do what we can, even in the face of the despairing and discouraging stories we hear both at Patchwork and in the wider world. It’s a reminder that those nickels add up and will eventually help someone get to where they’re going.
Here are the words of Dr. Pinkola:
Ours is not the task of fixing the entire world all at once, but of stretching out to mend the part of the world that is within our reach. Any small, calm thing that one soul can do to help another soul, to assist some portion of this poor suffering world, will help immensely. It is not given to us to know which acts or by whom, will cause the critical mass to tip toward an enduring good.
What is needed for dramatic change is an accumulation of acts, adding, adding to, adding more, continuing. We know that it does not take everyone on Earth to bring justice and peace, but only a small, determined group who will not give up during the first, second, or hundredth gale.
I encourage you to read Dr. Pinkola’s full essay. I first read the excerpted section in a Nonprofit AF blog post.
A Nickel for Your Thoughts
