We Are So Lucky, Post #1
As we say on POCA Tech’s website, “POCA Tech is the beneficiary of a massive endowment of goodwill, social capital, knowledge, skills, competence, and volunteerism via its relationship to the POCA Cooperative.” We’ve known about this for a while. But seriously, you guys, it’s amazing and it just doesn’t stop. This is the first post in a series about beautiful things that people have been giving to POCA Tech.
First up: videos. As I mentioned before, Suzanne Morrissey and Patricia Keith are making a documentary about POCA Tech. Along the way, they have been making short videos and sharing them with us. The front page of the POCA Tech website now has three videos on it (scroll down to the bottom of the page): two by Suzanne and Patricia and one by POCA Tech’s Board Secretary, Jade.
The first video is a short interview with Sarah Evans, superpunk, describing why she chose community acupuncture, despite having had a conventionally successful practice — in a hospital, no less. I think this video might inspire some, ah, discussion in the larger acupuncture world — but it radiates truth. It’s like a beacon: this is the kind of person that POCA and POCA Tech are looking for.
The second video is another short interview with Lauren, POCA Tech punkling, describing what she likes about POCA Tech, which is definitely not what everybody would like or what everybody is looking for in an acupuncture school. But it’s a lovely glimpse of what it looks like when POCA Tech is a good fit.
And the third video, which is the longest, is part of an extended interview that Suzanne did with POCA Tech punkling Tristan about his relationship to the ideals of POCA Tech. It’s a look at what it’s like to attend POCA Tech through the eyes of someone who belongs there, and it’s beautiful.
I’m delighted with these videos because I think they capture exactly what the school is and what it’s trying to accomplish. The videos help other people to see who we are but they also help us to see who we are. For such a geographically far-flung community, that’s a true gift.
Thank you Suzanne, Patricia and Jade.
You click on a banner to donate what amounts to the cost of a cup of coffee. You sign in to a website and do some shopping and a little pop up tells you that you just made a small donation to a school. You buy a Lego block instead of a Big Mac. You toss some spare change into a jar at your clinic.
Each time you say to yourself, “hmmmm, I wonder if this is really doing any good”? But it makes you feel good for a minute that you did it.
You click on a YouTube video a year later, see the results of thousands of people doing the same little things, and I say to myself “WOW, it really DOES work!!” It makes you feel good for another minute that you are actually helping MANY others feel good for Life!!