Showing Up Anyway

There’s a strange thing that happens when you show up somewhere people don’t expect you to be. And somewhere a few of them would prefer you hadn’t come at all.

 

Last month, during the federal shutdown chaos, I went to a community organizing meeting about food insecurity. Benefits were lapsing, families scrambling, SNAP access delayed. A group of volunteers—local chapters, neighborhood organizations, small mutual-aid groups—put together a call-out to coordinate a response. It wasn’t glamorous. It wasn’t ideological. It was people trying to make sure their neighbors didn’t go hungry.

 

I went because I care about the work. I had actually launched Organizing Against Hunger, a crowd-sourced spreadsheet informing folks in need where they can get food. Feeding people is not a political stunt for me. It’s a moral baseline. And when the event invite went around, I knew I should be there.

 

I also knew some people in the room would be surprised I showed up. I knew others would be skeptical. And I knew at least one person—who’s been antagonistic toward me online—would bristle at my presence. All of that was true.

 

But when your neighbors might not be able to eat, you don’t get to decide which spaces feel comfortable. You just show up.

 

I sat in the room, listened, contributed where I could, offered connections, and then listened more. I wasn’t the loudest voice. I didn’t try to make it about me. I just tried to be useful.

 

And after the meeting, a few people came up to thank me for being there. Even one of the main organizers said “Even if someone wanted to take the most cynical view, the fact is you still showed up.”

 

It meant a lot. Because the truth is, people in Indy have been burned by politicians for a long time. They have every right to be skeptical.

 

A week later, I went back. Some seemed happy to see me. One person I’ve known for years—someone who used to be cordial—refused to speak to me at all. That’s politics, I guess. Or more accurately, that’s ideology.

 

Ideology makes it easy to turn a person into a caricature. Service makes it impossible.

 

What frustrated me wasn’t the disagreement. That’s normal. It was the refusal to acknowledge shared purpose.

 

We were talking about feeding people. Feeding people. Not foreign policy. Not party factions. Not left-center-right identity wars.

 

Feeding hungry neighbors.

 

And somehow, even that became a purity test for a handful of online voices who weren’t in the room, weren’t doing the work, and weren’t feeding anyone.

 

But here’s what leadership has taught me. You can’t control how people interpret your presence. You can only control whether you show up in the first place.

 

I’m not running for Congress to win points from factions or to fit into someone else’s ideological storyline. I’m running because government is failing at its most basic functions and communities are stepping in where systems have collapsed.

 

And if the people doing the work invite you in—even if it’s awkward, even if some don’t want you there, even if a few are committed to misunderstanding you—you go. You listen. You help. You contribute. You show up again.

 

Because at the end of the day, the only thing that matters is whether someone who was hungry yesterday isn’t hungry tomorrow.

 

Everything else is noise.

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