Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
You pass them in the village and sit near them at the diner—but everyone in the Hudson Valley has a story that would surprise you. This is a podcast for getting to know your neighbors. We’re stripping away the surface level to find the human heart of our region, proving that even the person next door has a journey worth sharing. Discover your community all over again.
Erica Brown
I have said to folks over and over again, I'm like, man, my job is community engagement. It's a part of who I am. When I'm thinking about community engagement, it's really hard to do it well.
Jen Lee
Welcome to Hudson Valley Storycatcher, a podcast for curious residents where we bridge the distance between our houses and hills with good stories that turn strangers into neighbors. I’m Jen Lee. Today, I'm sitting down with someone who shares a deep mutual interest in what it actually means to build community. Not as a polished ideal, but as a living, breathing, and often messy practice.
Erica Brown is a deeply engaged member of her community. As a resident of Kingston, New York and Ulster County, and is the Community Engagement Coordinator at Radio Kingston, where she connects the station to the community it serves through partnerships, programming, and public presence. In this conversation, we step outside of her professional role to explore why community engagement is more than a job.
It's part of who she is, right here in the Hudson Valley.
Hello, Erica.
Erica Brown
Hello. How are you today?
Jen Lee
I'm doing well. What else should we know about you?
Erica Brown
Oh, boy. I think that everyone should know that Community Engagement Coordinator is like a part of my identity. The resources here at Radio Kingston have amplified who I already am. I strongly identify with being a mother and a sister and a daughter. So family is very important to me. Oh, and friends. My friends mean everything to me.
It's important to me to be contributing actively, whatever that might mean. And I've been kind of checking some of that up against capitalism and this push to be productive in a capitalist society. And it's not that. So I'm picking that apart, but those are really the things that I've got.
Jen Lee
That's great. And I really relate to that feeling of wanting to be contributing and also questioning, is this capitalism or something?
Erica Brown
Yes.
Jen Lee
How difficult it is to kind of take those apart. This idea of community engagement. It seems like something about that being really core to who you are. So when you think about when you were young or in the past, like were there moments where you were like this is a thing for me?
Do you know what I'm saying?
Erica Brown
I do. I totally do. It's interesting because I was born in Kingston, but when I was, like, from 7 to 13 or so, I lived in the Finger Lakes, in Auburn, New York, which is actually the final hometown of Harriet Tubman. And Thompson Memorial Church is a church that Harriet’s ancestors attend, still. And that was our church, and so I mean since I was seven I have been volunteering. The church is/was/are a steward of the library that eventually opened up there, and also Harriet Tubman’s home. I’m not sure if that’s still the case, but it was then.
I have been volunteering since then, and I haven’t been able to get it out of my bones. I think that aside from going to church and learning that from family, high school really is when I started to show some of those roots that my parents kind of were teaching by example. They were like, “Alright, these are the things we do: We show up for community.”
Ever since that 9th grade signing up for student government, I have not looked back.
I have been in student government in high school, and in community college, and my undergraduate. And like, I just can't get enough of it. I feel like the more that you are connected with people in your community and the deeper relationship that you have, the better you can help folks.
And there's something important to me about just relationship. And, I guess the reciprocity, not that I'm saying that it needs to be, you know, a deliberate, like, give and take. But, you know, I think that that becomes natural, you know in, in anyone's relationship. But community is important to me. I have been more deliberate about where I'm donating my time and where my engagement lies outside of work.
And I think that that probably has something to do with the energy in the world right now. It's kind of hard to be in community, right now.
Jen Lee
I do think it is hard to be in community right now. I think feeling safety, can be a challenge. Feeling known especially for anyone who has a marginalized identity. There's just all different kind of, I feel like, risk levels that people are experiencing that are maybe different than they felt present to in the past.
I don't know if there's a way that you can articulate what the feeling is, or the experience on your end of being part of something that keeps you coming back for more opportunities in different stages of your life.
Erica Brown
Interesting. I mean, it sounds really cheesy to say that it felt like a calling. But it kind of. I don't know that I had any other choice or that I even considered that would, that there would be another choice. That's part of it. And then I guess the other part is, why would I keep coming back?
Because there's a lot of work to do. And, it's gratitude. Every time that I'm offered the opportunity to show up and volunteer and do something or be somewhere, to help make decisions or whatever it might be. For me, there's like this little whisper, or sometimes it's a yell of gratitude. And so I almost always instantly say yes.
It's because in the trajectory of history and my considering my, my ancestors and, having family that date back to the, you know, the 1700s here in Ulster County and just thinking about, Black and Brown folks in, in the United States and really the world. I will continue to say “yes” while these opportunities are here for me.
And, you know, I'm always trying to figure out I'm like, Right, who's not here, who's not here that has a really great opinion, or point of view, or experience to add? There's something between purpose and gratitude, where I feel like sometimes I'm like drumming up gratitude to get out of some kind of a rut. But when I'm volunteering, I am just grateful to be in a space with other people who care.
And also, things always seem to get a little bit better. There are more and more people at the table. There are more and more considerations that are being made and that's magical to watch.
Jen Lee
One of the things that I was hearing in what you were describing earlier about relationship is this idea of it being a counter model to the way we're often used to dealing with each other transactionally. So it's like, there's this transactional model where we're keeping score. We're trying to keep the sides equal.
And it seems like part of what you're describing with your community work in volunteer work is this opportunity to have this alternate model that has relationship more at the core. Is that how you experience it?
Erica Brown
Yeah, absolutely. It's, it's a blessing and a curse when diverse folks and voices come into a room, you bring your experiences with you, and that means that people sound different, look different, talk different, come from different backgrounds, all of these different things. And I think that that's part of my favorite something to navigate. It's both beautiful and challenging.
It's hard to go through conflict, but when you get to the other side of it, I think that there's something really amazing about it. Something I've been thinking about a lot more over the last few years is like, what is community? You know, if you put a line around the city of Kingston, I think that we are geographically a community.
When you have values and beliefs that you share with someone and you gather around those things, I think that that can be called a community. I'll talk about some of the work that I was really grateful to be a part of at the start of the pandemic, which was originally coming out of a group that was called Kingston Resilience.
There was a group of (and I won't name anyone) of five, six, maybe seven of us who ended up being female-bodied human beings, a few non-binary folks. And the way that we showed up to do really, really deep, heavy work like feeding people or, accepting donations from the community and figuring out, you know, where does it get stored?
And, like, how do you raise money to then sustain a monthly, like, rental unit where these things are brought? And like, who's unlocking it and, and all these moving pieces that came out of, not an organization at all, but just, folks, who were really passionate and taking care of their community. We were showing up for the most part, all of us with a certain level of, I think deep tolerance and open mindedness and care for one another.
But it's like, You need your baby? You bring your baby. You're going to be late? Don't worry about it. There was something that was established over time because I feel like, let's see, we were probably working together, that group, from May of 2020 into 2021. And then some, some things were like offshoots that are still operating, like the Kingston Mutual Aid Facebook group is still operating.
There's something about bringing your full self into a space with other people who are like, unapologetically themselves and want to be unapologetically themselves, who understand the layers that a human being has. The layers of nuance, and complexity. Those are my favorite people to organize with. There's something incredible about allowing human beings to be as messy or neat and tidy as they are, as long as they feel like they're being safe.
And then to see the evolution of like, how a person opens up who they are and like how much more they bring of themselves to a space or to a table, or how your relationships flourish. And, you know, out of that group, there have been some relationships I've had over the last few years where, you know, it started out that way and it got a little bit rocky and fell apart.
But to be deeply human, you know, as we are, animals like to really peel away kind of what we've been told that we have to do and how we have to do it is intoxicating to me.
Jen Lee
And it's also not something that we're experiencing in all of our contexts. I think probably the more normative experience is that when I enter a space, whether it's a workspace, professional space, corporate space, family of origin space, there's often this, whether conscious or not, this understanding that I need to maybe check part of myself at the door.
And maybe like these slivers of the pie of my self or identity are welcome here and others are not. So it sounds like you're really finding a context and places inside this work to both have that more holistic experience for yourself and also help create it for others.
Erica Brown
Yeah. Which then makes it even harder to be in the spaces where that way of experiencing the world in collaboration is, is not present. On the flip side of showing up as your authentic self, like the idea of tact. You know, do you have, do you enter a space with tact? You know, do I know what to say and what not to say? And when, and around whom?
Erica Brown
I feel like 2020 the whole world exploded around George Floyd. But I felt very naked as a black person. I feel like the world was primed. The world wanted to know how to help. I had friends asking me and, all the Black people I know had friends asking them.
And the world was asking them. And it's like, on any level, you know, walking outside, talking to your neighbor, to nationally, it's like, Black folks were telling folks how to help.
And there was a point where I felt like I had given away all of my secrets. I uncovered some of my defense mechanisms that I was using to feel safe in the world.
And once I became naked, I was legit angry for years. It was really hard for me to go into spaces. It was hard for me to keep my mouth shut–I did, but it was hard for me to keep my mouth shut. And not want to call out racism. In the moment, wherever I was at any moment.
I got tired of being angry because I was the person who was mad. And so having to figure out how to feel the safest in my physical body was to figure out how can I be in this world, tolerate more and know what not to tolerate and have tact, to know when to bring, or when not to bring some things up?
Jen Lee
I'm also thinking about something you mentioned a few minutes ago, about coming into these spaces, and you having the ability to kind of have an eye on whose voices could be included or should be included.
Is there anything you can share about how people, whatever situation or context they’re in, how they could be more mindful or what questions you ask about whose voice should be included? Whose voice are we missing? What will it add if we bring them in?
Erica Brown
A quarter of our population in Kingston are Spanish-speaking folks. If you are going to have something that you would like to offer, you should really figure out how to have your information translated, if you have a flyer. And the follow up to that is, interpretation. Language justice is really important.
There’s a Hudson Valley Language Justice group that have an email address, and they work to figure out how to make spaces, programs and events more inclusive for, you know, a population.
And just exhaust the question, “But what about (blank)?” So I’m a Black woman, yeah sure. But what about Black single moms who rent? But what about Black single moms who rent but are having their rent subsidized? And it’s just like all these additional layers just help to filter out, like the way that we do things and process.
And I always think it’s important to consider the power dynamics in every space and to just be aware, you know, of those different power dynamics. Community engagement is a hat, is like a lens, that I think everyone should put on. And asking that, well what about fill in the blank question over and over again. You can exhaust it, but it’s near impossible and makes things really expensive, but still making the attempt is important.
And I have said to folks over and over again, I'm like, man, my job is community engagement. It's a part of who I am. So even removing Radio Kingston when I'm thinking about community engagement, it’s really hard to do it well.
And like some of the curiosities that have come up for me, it's like, well, is community engagement just engaging with the people who are in front of you or is it deeper than that?
You know, is engagement making sure that what it is that I'm offering is out there for anyone who wants it and not just the people who I've made up in my mind are the audience for this thing? And so, yeah, I think exhausting that list is really, is really helpful. And taking it with you and thinking, I feel like a lot of the times in process, in meetings, like a lot of the times when people ask me, they'll kind of deliver information to me and they're like, all right, so what are your thoughts?
And I'm like, I mean, I don't know, I'll let you know in a day or a week. I can let you know. But I think that, you know, in this capitalist society, urgency is, is a thing.
Like, I'm actually in this cohort right now where we are following two moon cycles and we had to choose three things to fast. One of those things for me is urgency. And I mean, we can stop pretending like w e have to do everything, as quickly as we do. And so really removing that urgency, and taking some time to think about something and, and carrying it with you in space and time and, like, opening your eyes and just kind of, you know, looking out, at folks–
Jen Lee
That’s a real practice.
Erica Brown
It’s deep.
Jen Lee
Because there's something about urgency that's sparkly , right? Or like, distracting the way, like something that sparkles catches your eye. Yeah. You know.
Erica Brown
I feel like for me.
Jen Lee
But it separates us from depth, and from our own embodied process is what I'm hearing you say, that you get to add when you slow down a bit to say, let me get back to you in a day or two.
Erica Brown
Yeah.
Jen Lee
Let me metabolize it.
Erica Brown
And I feel like a lot of the times in like meditation practices, I hear like I hear consistently, “Be present, like be in the present, be in the present.” But I never really thought to reframe it as: try to reduce your urgency. And like the whole idea of “be present,” like, I don't know, it was, it's a concept, I understand, but it was really hard for me to do.
But now saying, quit your urgency, like there are moments where I feel myself starting to rush and I'm like, nope. And it's interesting because I notice it the moment it is about to happen. And I mean, it's only been a week and a half since I've been trying to remove urgency from my life, but it's helpful and it helps to bring me into the present.
And I'm. I'm, like, so deeply appreciative of it. I found that I'm a lot calmer, a lot more chill.
Jen Lee
Yeah, that's a good one. And I appreciate that. The picture that you're kind of painting for us about your experience with engaging community, building community, even interrogating what that is, is not like this. I don't know, like airy fairy, idealistic thing, but it sounds like you're bringing in the humanity, the messiness of it, the complexity of the conflict.
And, you're saying like, it's not easy. So I'm just curious, why do you think it matters? Why is it worth it?
Erica Brown
We are all connected, whether we like it or not. And, the energy that we exchange is really important. I mean, if you, if anybody has ever kind of walked–had an experience where you've made eye contact with someone, either frowned or smiled or sometimes you smile at somebody. Somebody doesn't smile back at you, like all these different energies, if you think about it, all of them matters. Like we matter to one another whether we are close enough to one another in this time in history, in the world to notice it.
And I found that the more that I treat people the way that I would want to be treated, actually, like with all of these complexities that I've kind of discussed, the better I find that I, I treat people. And it's not about needing to get something back.
It's about making life lighter because it's so fleeting and so short.
So just understanding that every single action matters, knowing that we are all connected, knowing that people make mistakes, and knowing that this short, fleeting life is that we have and in this shared experience right now is a blip, in time. And like, right now is the one time that we are all here together.
And if we can figure out how to make that better, let's figure it out. And so I'm always chasing that. Like, what does it mean to love everyone and anyone? And it's not easy, at all. And I'm not perfect, like, ask my kids. But, I think it's chasing that want to be able to love anyone.
Jen Lee
Yeah. And I think there's something sacred in the attempt. Right?
Erica Brown
Yeah.
Jen Lee
So thank you for taking the time to talk to me.
Erica Brown
Thank you. I really appreciate this.
Jen Lee
If Erica's words resonated with you, the best way to support the show is to share this episode with a friend or neighbor right here in the Valley. This podcast is a community project. If you know someone in the Hudson Valley with a story that needs to be caught, I want to hear from you.
You can send me your guest recommendations to HudsonValleyStorycatcher@gmail.com, or visit us at: HudsonValleyStorycatcher.com.
Until next time, keep your heart open and your ears ready. Every neighbor has a story. I'm Jen Lee, thanks for catching this story with me.