Social Capital: How to Make Friends and Get Free Potatoes

Hi Everyone! From time to time my wife Aimee is going write a guest post. Watch for her introduction post soon.

By Mrs. Canadian Renegade

Polka Dot Aprons Left to right: Khaloud and Naila. The women that brought us food.

When most people hear capital they automatically think of their financial position. A few years ago Mr. Canadian Renegade introduced me to the idea of having capital outside of that which we acquire financially. The notion seemed a little foreign at first, but the more I pondered the more I was able to recognize the variety of capital I had accumulated in my own life. As a self-professed social butterfly, I was not surprised by the amount of social capital I had built up. While I’ve always known my family and friends to be generous, the arrival of our twins truly opened my eyes to the value of social capital and the network I had built beyond my inner circle.

As a freelance graphic designer and photographer, I picked up a contract with a local greenhouse. Each Thursday, this greenhouse would host a local farmer’s market which I would browse after my weekly in-house shift. Before long, I was scheduling my work day around the market and I became a regular patron. Forming relationships with people you’re interacting with face-to-face on a weekly basis is easy, and without much effort my social capital began to grow. I began to ask questions about what I was buying, the vendors started offering recipes and right before my eyes personal relationships had formed. Eventually, the market coordinator reached out to my client for assistance with their advertising and I was recruited to help. We coordinated photographing each of the vendors and their products and before long I knew everyone and what they were passionate about.

Local businesses are quick to reward regular customers for the patronage. Quite often, vendors will also have less-than-desirable produce that isn’t displayed at their tables. If you’re willing to ask for “ugly” vegetables, or ready-to-eat fruit you can score a bargain for perfectly good produce. One particular vendor I bought our vegetables and eggs from began offering me special rates and would often throw in extras, that would otherwise spoil, as freebies. I can’t even remember the last time I paid for a bag of potatoes!

When our wedding rolled around I opted to buy local pies for dessert and extra eggs for a farewell breakfast for the guests who had travelled a great distance to celebrate with us. Without hesitation, our local vendor gave us all our pies and threw in the additional eggs for free as a wedding gift.

When I was pregnant with our twins the whole market became my village. When I was tired, the pork vendor offered me blood sausage, for free, to increase my iron and relieve my fatigue, and a woman that crochets gave me hand-made baby cloths.

Photo Courtesy of Julia James. Aimee at about 34 weeks pregnant.

Once the twins arrived, I wasn’t able to visit to the market for quite some time. A mother/daughter team from the market did some digging until they could find a way to contact me at home. They asked for a list of my regular groceries, did my shopping for me, delivered, and threw in a meal! I genuinely enjoyed getting to know these hard-working individuals and wanted to support their businesses by shopping local, and I built my social capital, unknowingly, in the process.

Left: Sharon from Johnson Family Farms.

You don’t have to look far for social capital either. The arrival of two babies quickly threw us into the trenches of parenthood. No matter how many times I had been told that being a parent would be challenging I couldn’t truly understand how hard parenting would be until our little ones arrived... times two! While I pride myself on being independent, there came a moment where I knew the survival of our mental health was going to depend on being able to reach out. We graciously accepted freezer meals from family, and bravely ask friends to provide us with additional meals when we ran out and were still struggling to find our footing. Everyone was quick to come to our aid and make sure we weren’t going hungry. My mom tribe was also quick to lend us baby clothing, swings, and bassinets among other essentials. While we had prepared, buying two of everything began to take a toll on our pocket book and both friends and family were more than willing to lend us items from their storage stash to keep us afloat.

Building social capital isn’t about keeping score either. When communities are built, helping one another becomes second nature. We are richer when we work together in a voluntary manner. Social capital doesn’t have to be tied to financial acts, such as groceries, either. Helping people move, or paint a room, or offering our skillsets costs nothing and are all ways you can build social capital. These actions are also a way to have a good conversation and spend quality time with people we care about. With every act of generosity we extend, social capital is cr­eated so don’t forget to giveback too.