The Day I Realized I Was the Only Thing Standing Between My Community and Their Own Apathy

Here it is:

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The Day I Realized I Was the Only Thing Standing Between My Community and Their Own Apathy

Three years. Three years of potatoes.

In 2023 I stood at a local ranch in the cold and watched volunteers show up — people who saw the call on social media, drove out, and worked alongside me boxing potatoes for distribution. A thousand pounds of good food that went home with families who needed it. I went home exhausted and grateful. This is what community looks like, I thought. This is why I built Eden’s Edge.

In 2024 I brought six super sacks home to the farm. Thousands upon thousands of pounds of potatoes. A few volunteers showed up. We worked. We distributed. Every last potato found a home.

Two years. Two successes. Community showing up for community.

So in 2025 when the ranch offered again I said yes. Of course I said yes. We had a system. We had momentum. We had proof that this worked.

There was one difference this time.

I couldn’t do the heavy labor anymore. The digging. The packing. The lifting. My body, which has been waging a quiet war against me for years, finally drew a hard line. I could be there. I could organize. I could show up in every way except the physical ones that apparently everyone else was waiting for someone else to do.

Two people came.

Two.

Thousands of pounds of free food sitting at a ranch waiting for a community that didn’t show up.

One of those two people, representing a food bank of all things, looked at those potatoes and called them crap. Wouldn’t take a single one. Turned around and left.

This is the same food bank that has sent me boxes of moldy food to distribute to families in need. They rejected free, good potatoes.

I stood there and did the math I didn’t want to do.

2023 — I was digging and packing and lifting and leading from the dirt. People followed.

2024 — I was hauling and organizing and driving the work. People followed.

2025 — I asked people to come and do the work themselves.

They didn’t come.

I wasn’t the draw because of Eden’s Edge. I wasn’t the draw because of the mission or the need or the thousands of pounds of food available for free to anyone willing to show up.

I was the draw because I was working harder than anyone else and people would follow that energy, as long as they didn’t have to generate their own.

The moment my body said no, the moment I needed the community to show up for itself instead of following me, it didn’t.

That broke something in me I’m still trying to name.

Because here’s what I know after four years of doing this work:

I am one woman. I am disabled. I farm on forearm crutches with no sensation in my limbs in Alaska. I have given everything this body has and then some to make sure people in my community don’t go without.

And I can’t be the only engine.

I shouldn’t have to be.

The food exists. The need exists. The opportunity existed and it was free and it was real and it was right there waiting.

But without me standing in the dirt doing the heaviest part, nobody came.

I don’t know what to do with that yet. I’m still sitting with it.

What I do know is that somewhere between convenience and community we made a wrong turn. We decided that caring about something means clicking a button or sharing a post. That showing up means showing up online.

It doesn’t.

Showing up means showing up.

And until more of us are willing to do that, I’ll keep standing in the cold counting the people who came.

This year it was two.

I’m hoping next year it’s more.

But hope isn’t a plan. And I’m done pretending it is.

Dana Eden’s Edge, Nikiski Alaska