I love meeting new people and coaxing out their stories, although sometimes I wonder what it would be like to assemble the wild, hodgepodge of unique and occasionally crazy characters who share their stories all together in the same room.

Would they get along? Would they have anything in common?

I wondered about that this past weekend, when the combination of people I met transcended the ordinary.

On Friday I finished stitching up black, lacy green satin garters in support of a downtown business owner friend whose Burlesque Night tribute to Port Orchard’s pioneering past served as a fundraiser for South Kitsap Helpline.

Sitting with Jennifer Hardison and Suanne Martin-Smith, I watched as women danced around with dollar bills stuck in my proudly sewn garters, and I marveled at Port Orchard’s rich nightlife and the characters that emerge when the sun goes down.

Getting up bright and early the next morning, I managed to get myself elected as a delegate to a state convention and listened to campaign speeches by and spoke to the likes of Derek Kilmer, Sherry Appleton, Clark Mather (U.S. Rep. Norm Dicks’ aide) Kim Abel and Christine Rofles.

Missing the early ferries, I skipped a Green Festival offshoot party that night that involved aerial dancers, (women who dance suspended from ropes in the ceiling), feeling that it would prove just a little too weird even for me, opting instead for the Green Festival itself the next day.

There I had an intensely serious discussion about the food shortage in Haiti, where the people eat dirt mixed with oil for survival, with an Oxfam representative, whose girlfriend, a Stanford University student, serves a photojournalist documenting the crisis.

I spoke to Palestinian women at the Rachel Corrie Foundation booth about their situation and to a young Iranian businessman from L.A., who came to the U.S. without his family at the age of 10.

I bought an organic cotton T-shirt and talked for nearly an hour with the owners of Organic Fred, two young men, one a children’s illustrator and the other a Navy SEAL, who hoped to sell enough to cover their transportation costs back to D.C.

I listened to Frances Moore Lappe, best-selling author of Diet for a Small Planet, speak on hope for the future and then I rushed from the Festival to the ferry returning just in time to catch the Orchard Theater’s showing of the indie film, “Local Color.”

After catching my breath, I had time to wonder if there was anything, anything at all, these situations or people had in common.

The answer appears on the surface to be nothing.

Yet the truth is everything. They have everything in common. These situations, book-ended by the efforts of local businesspeople to bring in business to downtown, all spoke of the same thing – the struggle and hope to survive.

While I’m paid to focus solely on the local and I won’t deviate, because these are important stories, we all know that on a global level we are facing food, energy and water shortage crises that will be unprecedented in our lifetimes.

I chastise myself all the time saying, “Mary, if anyone has the training to do something about these situations, it’s you,” and yet it’s tough enough for me to figure out how to pay for an electric bill (when I actually flip my heat on) that grows scarier by the day.

Distractions abound. I find them everywhere. We can come up with countless mindless distractions and excuses to avoid being courageous and stepping outside ourselves. It’s the reason, I believe, we abide petty politics.

We use them, because we figure if we fight enough, we don’t have to do anything. We can hide. Our friends could be losing their homes, but we have time to lob insults in the paper.

Partisan politics won’t save us.

On some level, we all know we need to work together or risk falling alone.

People do fail here, regularly. They invest their hearts, souls and entire life savings into dream businesses.

We let them fail and leave them to feel alone in the process.

While the community has stepped in to rescue the Howletts, who had to close Fat Rascals because of back taxes owed, I see no one stepping in to save Russ Wigley, owner of Bay Street Books, or Heather Cole, whose leukemia has returned and who can’t open her bed-and-breakfast because the Port Orchard City Council changed its policies and raised rates.

Both Heather and Russ are quiet about their struggles (forgive me for sharing them), but both stand on the verge of losing their homes.

If you believe that’s OK, that it’s all part of life, that some survive and some don’t, we don’t share the same philosophies.

So I’m asking you to step up today. We can’t solve Haiti’s food crisis, or Africa’s water crisis, but we can help our neighbors.

There are many ways to do so, as many ways as there are mindless distractions.

The Farmers Market opens today, celebrating its 30th year. There you will find all sorts of wonderful offerings.

You’ll find my beloved tax man, Al, with his newest garden selections, including gorgeous peonies that I adore.

You’ll find Morning Star Bakery’s sumptuous goodies. You’ll find early vegetables and starts, as well as music and festivities for the kids to mark the anniversary.

On April 27, starting at noon, (right after church) the Port Orchard Bay Street Association will be out in force to clean the downtown in preparation of the opening of boating season.

This organization, led by the endlessly optimistic and effervescent Mallory Jackson, keeps growing every year and has great support from local homeowners, who live on the streets above the city, but they still need you.

They really need you. They’ll be taking pressure washers to the sidewalks and staining the 26 new flower baskets they had built to grace the poles.

They’ll be planting flowers in these baskets and the containers that line the sidewalks. They’ll be cleaning windows and picking up cigarette butts.

They’ll be walking the streets, polishing and beautifying.

In Silverdale, the community has a huge event called Super Saturday, in which the Rotary Clubs sponsor the local junior and senior high schoolers who clean the town from top to bottom.

We have no such thing in Port Orchard, but the POBSA has supporters.

The VFW Ladies Auxiliary donated $250 for flowers and the Long Lake Garden Club donated another $100. Moon Dogs, Too, which is now open to children until 7 p.m., is offering free drink vouchers to the first 15 volunteers (children and adults) who come prepared to help.

If someone wants to donate pizzas or sub sandwiches, they’d be welcome, too.

So grab your brooms, hammers and gardening gloves and join the crew for the work party on April 27.

You can meet up with everyone at Mallory’s place, Custom Picture Framing, 839 Bay Street at noon.

With a large enough group, the party should be finished by 2 p.m.

The following weekend, the city comes alive with the sound of seagull calls for the 20th annual Seagull Calling Contest. The wonderful Bryan Petro will emcee the event as always.

I trust that if you do any of these things and more, like visit Russ and buy a few books, or plan a tea party with Heather, you’ll find some amazing people with some very cool stories.

Mary Colborn is a

Port Orchard resident.