Civic engagement is a form of altruism, if altruism does exist. At its worst, civic engagement is self-promotion or a form of self gratification. At its best, it changes lives. In Buffalo, it is becoming a way of life.

The change, I think, can be attributed to the following. Buffalo is the third most poverty stricken city in the US with a population between 250,000 to 300,000. The population is in decline for the last 50 years. 20% of all home properties are vacant. We have a fantastic number of empty buildings in the city's core. Winter lasts 6 months
of the year, and we have Buffalo wings. (I am not a fan of fried food.) The mounting statistics paint a picture that Buffalo, as a city is dying. As a community, however, remarkable projects are emerging because good people just give a damn and have the capacity to undertake great challenges.

Case and point for giving a damn, the B-team of Buffalo is a group of college students who decided that they wanted to volunteer for projects. They do not care for whom as long as it improves the community. Their organizational practice is for a community group to call them up and tell them the need. The B-team calls up their friends to
help out. It is a simple process that has successfully recruited 60 volunteers on a cold Buffalo morning that reinvigorated one of Buffalo's block clubs.

B-Team:  http://www.bteambuffalo.com/

The B-team is an example of how the simplest thing that can turn big. Under the umbrella of projects that people say are impossible, Marti Gorman and Mark Donnelly of GreaterBuffalo.com have joined forces to create a ubiquitous web portal for 250,000 people to provide local goods and service to a regional market. Using citybration (citybration.com) as a starting point, they are developing key digital infrastructure to create what they call "Buffalo 2.0". Marti and Mark are laying out the foundations for this superportal by organizing real world events such as career fairs and small festivals to gather information about the people of Buffalo and develop partnerships between organizations. So far, this
dynamic duo has received support from city officials and major business players throughout the city and is quickly progressing towards great change in how the city normally operates.

Citybration: http://www.citybration.com

What other major efforts are you aware of? Please share in the comments section below, even if it is a blurb.

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