{"id":65942,"date":"2025-12-20T07:42:09","date_gmt":"2025-12-20T07:42:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/65942\/"},"modified":"2025-12-20T07:42:09","modified_gmt":"2025-12-20T07:42:09","slug":"bit-by-bit-small-groups-chip-away-at-historic-levels-of-social-isolation-in-america-news-sports-jobs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/65942\/","title":{"rendered":"Bit by bit, small groups chip away at historic levels of social isolation in America | News, Sports, Jobs"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\t\t\t\tAP Photo\/Jessie Wardarski
\nA group from the Neighborhood Resilience Project, an Orthodox social service agency connected to St. Moses the Black Orthodox Church, paints a home in Clairton, Pa., as part of the organization\u2019s community-building programs, Monday, Nov. 24. <\/p>\n

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\t\t\t\tA boy prepares to throw a basketball up the hill to his friends while at the Baltimore Gift Economy\u2019s third annual \u201cFinding Home\u201d gathering on Collins Avenue in Baltimore on Sunday, Oct. 19, 2025. (AP Photo\/Jessie Wardarski)<\/p>\n

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\t\t\t\tVisitors learn about fall crops like lettuce and kale while on a walking tour of Collins Avenue during the Baltimore Gift Economy\u2019s third annual \u201cFinding Home\u201d gathering, Sunday, Oct. 19, 2025, in Baltimore. (AP Photo\/Jessie Wardarski)
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AP Photo\/Jessie Wardarski
\nA group from the Neighborhood Resilience Project, an Orthodox social service agency connected to St. Moses the Black Orthodox Church, paints a home in Clairton, Pa., as part of the organization\u2019s community-building programs, Monday, Nov. 24. <\/p>\n

Across the country, small groups are working to rebuild social connection amid rising loneliness in their own modest ways.<\/p>\n

It sounds simple \u2014 building relationships. But they\u2019re up against powerful cultural forces.<\/p>\n

By many measures, Americans are socially disconnected at historic levels.<\/p>\n

They\u2019re joining civic groups, clubs and unions at lower rates than in generations. Recent polling shows that membership rates in religious congregations are around the lowest in nearly a century. Americans have fewer close friends than they used to. They trust each other less. They\u2019re hanging out less in shared public places like coffee shops and parks.<\/p>\n

About one in six adults feels lonely all or most of the time. It\u2019s the same for about one in four young adults.<\/p>\n

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A boy prepares to throw a basketball up the hill to his friends while at the Baltimore Gift Economy’s third annual “Finding Home” gathering on Collins Avenue in Baltimore on Sunday, Oct. 19, 2025. (AP Photo\/Jessie Wardarski)<\/p>\n

No one has a simple solution. But small groups with diverse missions and makeups are recognizing that social disconnection is a big part of the problems they\u2019re trying to address, and reconnection is part of the solution.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a Baltimore neighborhood trying to build a culture of giving and mutual support, and a Pittsburgh ministry focused on healing those wounded by poverty and violence. In Kentucky, a cooperative is supporting small farmers in hopes of strengthening their rural communities, while groups in Ohio are restoring neighborhoods and neighborliness.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need to build a movement centered around connection,\u201d former Surgeon General Vivek Murthy told The Associated Press. \u201cThe good news is that that movement is already starting to build. \u2026 What we have to do now is accelerate that movement.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 2023, Murthy issued a report on an \u201cepidemic of loneliness and isolation,\u201d similar to previous surgeon generals\u2019 reports on smoking and obesity. Social isolation and loneliness \u201care independent risk factors for several major health conditions, including cardiovascular disease, dementia, depression, and premature mortality,\u201d it said.<\/p>\n

Finding <\/p>\n

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Visitors learn about fall crops like lettuce and kale while on a walking tour of Collins Avenue during the Baltimore Gift Economy’s third annual “Finding Home” gathering, Sunday, Oct. 19, 2025, in Baltimore. (AP Photo\/Jessie Wardarski)<\/p>\n

\u2018personal connections\u2019 in Akron<\/p>\n

Murthy recently met with groups working toward community repair in Akron, Ohio, as part of his new Together Project, supported by the Knight Foundation.<\/p>\n

In one meeting, leaders of the Well Community Development Corp. told of fostering affordable housing and small businesses in a marginalized neighborhood and cultivating social gatherings, whether at the local elementary school or the coffee shop it launched in the former church that houses its offices.<\/p>\n

One encouraging development: Families have resumed trick-or-treating after years of largely dormant Halloweens in the neighborhood.<\/p>\n

\u201cThose types of things make a big difference,\u201d said Zac Kohl, executive director of The Well. \u201cIt\u2019s not just a safe, dry roof over your head. It\u2019s the personal connections.\u201d<\/p>\n

Across town, more local leaders met in a community room overlooking Summit Lake.<\/p>\n

The urban lakefront, once obscured by overgrowth, now draws joggers, fishers, boaters, people grilling. Summit Lake Nature Center provides educational programs and urban garden plots. The lakefront adjoins a public housing development and a recreational trail.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s strategically located to try to get people in the space to talk and interact with one another,\u201d said Erin Myers, director of real estate development for the Akron Metropolitan Housing Authority.<\/p>\n

\u201cI love that you\u2019ve worked on creating spaces where people can gather and connecting them with nature,\u201d Murthy told the gathering.<\/p>\n

Neighbors <\/p>\n

\u2018responsible for each <\/p>\n

other\u2019 in <\/p>\n

Baltimore<\/p>\n

On an October afternoon on Baltimore\u2019s outskirts, neighbors set out trays heaped with vegan jambalaya, beet salad, fresh-roasted goat meat and more. A rooster crowed insistently from a nearby backyard.<\/p>\n

Before the neighborhood feast, dozens of visitors gathered for a walking tour. Ulysses Archie described how this short block of Collins Avenue became a hub of backyard farming, environmental cleanup and neighborly connection.<\/p>\n

Visitors saw hens and rabbits raised by neighbors, and they explored a \u201cPeace Park\u201d created out of an abandoned lot, which now hosts food distributions and summer camps for neighborhood kids.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe core of what we do is building relationships, and building relationships with nature,\u201d Archie said.<\/p>\n

Neighbors described helping to clear overgrowth and create footpaths in an adjacent urban forest. They described their \u201cintentional\u201d community \u2014 not a formal program, but a commitment to caring for each other and the wider community, sharing anything from potlucks to rides to child care.<\/p>\n

Michael Sarbanes and his late wife, Jill Wrigley, moved to the neighborhood three decades ago. They spent long hours of youth mentoring and other services.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were burning out,\u201d Sarbanes recalled. They recognized, \u201cWe need to be doing this in community.\u201d<\/p>\n

They reached out to other families involved in social justice work. Though not everyone on the block is an active participant, several moved in or got involved over the years.<\/p>\n

Some belong to a local Catholic Worker group. Others are Protestants, Muslims, those with no religion, \u201cbut believing we are responsible for each other,\u201d said resident Suzanne Fontanesi.<\/p>\n

Participants include Ulysses and Chrysalinn Archie, who founded the Baltimore Gift Economy, a small nonprofit.<\/p>\n

Years earlier, Ulysses Archie suffered an injury that left him struggling financially and in spirit.<\/p>\n

He joined an urban farming program, \u201cput my hands in the soil, and my life was kind of normal again,\u201d he said. That healing work helped inspire the backyard farming.<\/p>\n

While the Archies appreciated the charities that supported their family during his long recovery, they often felt treated impersonally.<\/p>\n

With the Baltimore Gift Economy, they\u2019re seeking a more personal approach. A couple times a week, for example, they place food donated by nearby organic stores at the Peace Park. Participants take what suits their diet and needs.<\/p>\n

Participants are respectful and don\u2019t hoard, Ulysses Archie said.<\/p>\n

The food isn\u2019t labeled \u201cfree.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2018Free\u2019 is really transactional,\u201d Archie said. \u201cWhen we present it as a gift, it\u2019s really relational.\u201d The group encourages recipients \u201cto realize that they have something to give.\u201d<\/p>\n

Myk Lewis, 56, who returned to Baltimore after years in California, tends chickens and rabbits in his backyard. Neighbors support him as he cares for his aging mother.<\/p>\n

\u201cI probably wouldn\u2019t have been able to move back and start my life over if it wasn\u2019t for them,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Connecting to the land and each <\/p>\n

other in <\/p>\n

Kentucky<\/p>\n

On another October day in the small Kentucky town of New Castle, a guitarist played folk-rock classics as patrons lined up beneath a tent pavilion.<\/p>\n

Area chefs served them smoked brisket with salsa, beef Wellington bites, Thai beef salad and other specialties.<\/p>\n

But this \u201cBeef Bash\u201d was about much more than beef.<\/p>\n

Its sponsor, a cooperative of local farmers who raise grass-fed cattle, coordinates the processing and marketing of their beef to area restaurants and individuals. The program aims to provide a dependable income \u2014 helping small farmers stay on the farm and, in turn, strengthening rural communities.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith just a little help, people and land can heal,\u201d said Mary Berry, executive director of the Berry Center of New Castle, which launched the cooperative.<\/p>\n

The cooperative adapts methods from a former tobacco quota system that provided some stability for small farmers. After that program\u2019s demise in 2004, \u201cpeople lost what they held in common, which was an agricultural economy and calendar,\u201d Berry said. \u201cWe also needed each other.\u201d<\/p>\n

The surrounding community remains rural, but less tight-knit, she said, as many commute elsewhere or farm at a larger scale.<\/p>\n

The center promotes the agrarian principles of her father, the novelist and essayist Wendell Berry.<\/p>\n

At the end of the Beef Bash, farmers cheerfully gathered for a group photo, trading stories of tractor mishaps and middle of the night calving.<\/p>\n

They were finding community and mutual support.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we keep our farms going, we\u2019re all winning,\u201d said one farmer, Ashley Pyles.<\/p>\n

Another, Kylen Douglas, underscored the effects of strained social bonds.<\/p>\n

\u201cEverything\u2019s so digital, and everything\u2019s with the phone,\u201d Douglas said. \u201cWe\u2019re disconnected not only from where our food comes from, but just the center of life. Fewer people are going to church. Rural communities are having a hard time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Stronger farms can strengthen these communities, he said. \u201cEverybody should be able to have the opportunity to live here.\u201d<\/p>\n

Healing \u2018block by block\u2019 in Pittsburgh<\/p>\n

On a recent weekday at the Neighborhood Resilience Project in Pittsburgh, some residents were upstairs, training for a project to get more people qualified to perform CPR in marginalized neighborhoods.<\/p>\n

Downstairs amid the fragrant incense of St. Moses the Black Orthodox Church, worshippers were concluding a prayer liturgy. Afterward, they set out folding tables for a light meal of soup, hummus and conversation.<\/p>\n

The parish is closely fused with the Neighborhood Resilience Project, an Orthodox social service agency.<\/p>\n

They share a modest brick building in Pittsburgh\u2019s Hill District, a historically Black neighborhood just blocks from downtown but a world away \u2014 long suffering from crime, gun violence, racism and displacement.<\/p>\n

The project\u2019s mission is \u201ctrauma-informed community development.\u201d It hosts a food pantry and free health clinic. It deploys community health deputies and provides emotional support at violent crime scenes.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn our work, community building is absolutely the core intervention,\u201d said the Rev. Paul Abernathy, its founder and CEO.<\/p>\n

Social isolation \u201cis no longer simply the experience of marginalized communities,\u201d he observed. \u201cNow it seems as though the infection of isolation has spread across society.\u201d<\/p>\n

The center serves people regardless of faith. Not everyone on staff belongs to the church, though the church is attracting members.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt felt like real community, and people my age who want to actually do some things and not just talk about doing something,\u201d said Cecelia Olson, a recent college graduate. \u201cWe\u2019re going to feed people because they\u2019re hungry, and it\u2019s not that complicated.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fidelia Gaba, a University of Pittsburgh medical student who grew up in another church tradition, recently was confirmed at St. Moses.<\/p>\n

One Sunday, she felt emotionally distanced and couldn\u2019t even sing. \u201cI remember being carried by the church,\u201d she said. \u201cWhat was broken in me was healed.\u201d<\/p>\n

Project workers are reaching the isolated. Kim Lowe, a community health deputy, helps residents get to a food bank, address a child\u2019s conflict at school, \u201cwhatever the need is,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

One recent afternoon, Lowe visited Tricia Berger in the small apartment she shares with her daughter and grandson. Berger said she has multiple sclerosis and struggles with depression and anxiety. Lowe provides practical help, and the two enjoy conversing and watching comedy routines.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe connect well, with common interests, as well as her helping me get beyond my loneliness and conquering my fear,\u201d Berger said.<\/p>\n

For Abernathy, such efforts exemplify community healing.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt has to be healed person by person, relationship by relationship, block by block,\u201d he said. \u201cHonestly, neighborhood by neighborhood, it can be healed.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"AP Photo\/Jessie Wardarski A group from the Neighborhood Resilience Project, an Orthodox social service agency connected to St.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":65943,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[35129,73,75,74,35130,729],"class_list":{"0":"post-65942","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-pittsburgh","8":"tag-bit-by-bit","9":"tag-pittsburgh","10":"tag-pittsburgh-headlines","11":"tag-pittsburgh-news","12":"tag-small-groups-chip-away-at-historic-levels-of-social-isolation-in-america","13":"tag-uncategorized"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65942","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=65942"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65942\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/65943"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=65942"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=65942"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=65942"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}