New group in rural Nebraska town hopes to bring people together amid rise in political violence

Not as many younger people are joining clubs like rotary and Sertoma. A group of neighbors in the southeastern Nebraska town of Crete want to change that in their community by bringing together people, young and old. Former State Senator Laura Ebke helped found the group Crete Connect just a few days after the shooting death of political activist Charlie Kirk. Ebke spoke with Nebraska Public Media's Jackie Ourada about the community effort to bring neighbors back together.

Jackie Ourada: Why do you think we've fallen off on being a part of clubs and organizations?

Laura Ebke: I think there's a lot of reasons for that. You know, part of it is that we're just all busy. We have more two-income families, and it's a world that's different than when I was a kid. But I think the other thing is that the pandemic, I think, really contributed to it. We got used to talking to each other via zoom or working from home, and so we didn't have to interact with other people. So we're trying to find ways for people to interact face to face.

Ourada: When you do get people in a room and politics or topics that may bring the temperature up in the room when they come up, how do you go about making sure those conversations can still be facilitated but in a respectful manner?

Ebke: Well, you know, historically, what's happened is that people of differing political views will get together for a non political purpose, right? And in civic organizations, that's that's really what we want to do. And if politics comes up, which it inevitably will, that's fine, but that's not the focus of the conversation. You know, you may talk about politics, but your goal isn't to be political that night. Your goal is to play games or to do some sort of a service project or whatever. Hopefully, that will distract from, some of the, some of the hardcore political talk.

Ourada: What will be some of the first signs you see that show you, "Wow, this is making a difference." Or how do you mark the success of a mission like this? That is a bit arbitrary? Where you don't know, necessarily, what the end goal is?

Ebke: I think the end goal is to -- I won't see it in my lifetime -- but, the end goal is that the next generation gets together, that they that they learn that the world isn't all about politics. Politics is just a piece of it. And so let's work together on things that will, that will improve our communities. We started in Crete, because that's where we live and, and I think that Crete still has -- a lot of small towns in Nebraska still have -- a fair amount of this social capital. We still mostly are nice to each other, right? And we still do things together. We still have some of that kind of community engagement through the Rotary Club or whatever, and so it seemed like a good place to get started and to show that it really can make a difference. The real challenge is how do you get the young kids involved, the the folks that are just out of college and just starting their careers, or are in college, and that's our challenge, because really a lot of the civic training that my parents and grandparents experienced happened in those clubs, and so we have to start talking to each other more.

Ourada: It is harder having those conversations in person, I bet, for younger people, myself included, I formed some of the first friendships I had over the internet. Is there a way that you can, I guess, use that in this mission to leverage the social connection a bit more?

Ebke: Yeah, I think so. I think that we have to figure out what the what the platform is, because Facebook is a big platform for people my age now, but I don't think that folks your age are engaged so much in Facebook. So we have to figure out how to, you know which platform to use to get folks to turn out in person that and that's, that's our real goal is, you know, you can use the internet and all of those platforms as a tool, but ultimately, our goal is to actually get people face to face and talking to each other again.

Ourada: I have thought about going to more social events, and I have noticed after the pandemic, I do have quite a bit more social anxiety. Do you have any advice, I guess, for younger people who have who have grown up online, who have spent the last five years being more online?

Ebke: Yeah. I mean, I think it's hard to get rid of anxiety, but, I mean, I think one of the things you got to do is just do it and find something that you're interested in. I mean, if it's something, you know, game night on Nov. 1 in Crete, right? If it's something that you're kind of interested in, go try it out. I mean, what's the worst that can happen, you don't enjoy yourself and you don't go back? Yeah, you know you aren't committed to that forever, but you might find that you have a good time, and a lot of those kinds of things take practice. Getting yourself back, used to being out in the public again requires some practice.

Ourada: Yeah, thank you so much. This was really nice, and you know, you've given me some, some motivation to maybe sit down at that scary table.

Ebke: Well, I'm glad.