When most people attend Concerts in Centennial Park, they enjoy the music, engage in some friendly conversation and eat some ribs or ice cream.
Not Sue McGuinnis and Andrea Parker.
Last week the two Oxford residents weeded the village park’s overgrown flower garden during the concert.
They didn’t get paid to do it.
They weren’t asked to do it.
They’re not even members of the garden club.
They just started pulling weeds and piling them neatly to the side.
They saw a need and took immediate action.
“It’s a beautful night, there’s good music, my feet are in the soil . . .What more could you ask for?,” said McGuinnis, a village resident who lives on Pleasant St. “It’s always fun when it’s somebody else’s garden.”
McGuinnis and Parker’s actions embody the spirits of volunteerism and community pride.
Although it wasn’t their job to maintain the garden, the ladies felt it was their responsibility as residents to clean up a public space that obviously needed it.
Parker started weeding, then McGuinnis saw her and joined in. Good deeds are contagious.
The kicker is Parker is a township resident.
A township resident and village resident, who never met prior to that evening, worked side-by-side to fix up a village park they both felt responsible for as community members.
They didn’t argue about who owns what percentage of the garden or who’s responsible to clean it up.
Neither lady seized the garden or called their attorneys to seek advice.
Although they were surrounded by dirt, there was no mud-slinging.
McGuinnis and Parker dove head first into a messy situation and got a little dirty and sweaty, but in the end, their teamwork made the park a better place for everyone. There’s a lesson in that for all of us. – CJC