Town-wide Campaign Will Ask: Got Civility?

The Wakefield Alliance Against Violence is working on a town-wide project  for this fall that will emphasize the importance of civil behavior in public. 

At their meeting last week, WAAV members told local journalists that Sara Hacala, author of "Saving Civility: 52 Ways to Tame Rude, Crude and Attitude for a Polite Planet" will spend two days in Wakefield in late October. She will reportedly appear at Wakefield Community Access TV with time that includes a question and answer period, and the next day she is expected to speak at the middle school. 

While considerable attention has been devoted in schools and the media to bullying, the effort to promote civility is a step beyond those efforts, and in some cases can be a tool that helps people avoid confrontations, members noted at last week's meeting. 

As part of their effort to mark "Got Civility?" week in town (Oct. 20-27), WAAV members are distributing stickers to students and others. October also happens to be Domestic Violence Prevention month, and WAAV members expect to have a table at the Wakefield Farmer's Market the last week of September to help draw attention to that and other issues. 

Looking beyond the town-wide "Got Civility?" initiative, the Wakefield Alliance Against Violence is among the many local nonprofit organizations which has seen an increasingly uncertain future as volunteers and other resources become scarcer.

The local nonprofit was founded in 2007 with help from a Wakefield Rotary grant, and members reported that they had begun looking at future options for the group that, without some assistance from new volunteers, could include merging WAAV at some point in the coming months with some other like-minded entity in town. 

Local residents interested in getting involved with the Wakefield Alliance Against Violence or learning more about the group can email Bob Eldridge at bob32merry@msn.com.