Community & Hosiery

When we highlight our users’ success stories, we tend to focus on the ones that seem the biggest—typically stories about someone landing a job or internship. Every now and then, though, a story too good to pass up comes along, and we have to share it. This story, about Lai and two pairs of American Apparel hosiery, is one of those.

First, a little background from Lai herself. Lai posted her Offer on the Reed Switchboard—she graduated from Reed College in 2013. For her, American Apparel hosiery bear a special association with her college experience. “First, I want to emphasize that this is American Apparel hosiery,” she says. “I was introduced to American Apparel via a Reed friend, who was a huge fan of their basics. Of course, I had the option of shoving them on to whoever is next to me in New York, but I felt like a Reedie would appreciate it more.”

At Reed, there’s an annual dance where students, many of them clad in tights, cover one another in glitter. “I wanted another Reedie who appreciates our tradition of tights and glitter to have my extra hosiery,” Lai says.

When a fellow Reedie contacted Lai, they arranged to meet in Bryant Park for the exchange.

There, in front of the Bryant Statue, Lai gave away the hosiery. “The handing over of the hosiery was over in a matter of seconds,” Lai says. “I gave them to her in a brown Zara bag and said she could check the contents if she wished. She said it was ok, and thanked me before rapidly walking off with her friend.”

If only for a moment, a spark of recognition passed between Lai and the recipient of the hosiery—the leggings, the memories of glitter. That spark reconnected Lai to her college community and made a small patch of Bryant Park feel, for an instant, like home.

Lai encourages other members of her community to reconnect with one another, as well. “I would encourage everyone to use Switchboard! Reed friendships are very special,” she says. “Give everything and anything! Rather than hoard something, pass it on.”

You don’t need to find a job or internship through a member of your community to feel gratitude, to feel that you’re a part of the whole. Sometimes it only takes a few pairs of tights.

Photo of Bryant Park by Dan DeLuca.

Josie Finds Interviewees on the Wheelwomen Switchboard

The Wheelwomen Switchboard is a Switchboard for cyclists who identify as women nationwide. (You can read more about it in the Oregonian and BikePortland.) Since its inception, dozens of wheelwomen have posted asks and offers, and logged successes. This is just one of those success stories.

Josie posted an Ask on the Wheelwomen Switchboard a few weeks ago looking for people to interview for her blog, Life on Two Wheels. Josie uses her blog to chronicle her own adventures in the bike world, but also as a place for other cyclists to share their experiences. “My hope is that the stories will inspire others to get on a bike,” Josie says.

Josie’s Ask has led to two interviews with other wheelwomen so far: Emily, from Marin County, California, and Whitney from Seattle.

Josie says that the Wheelwomen Switchboard makes it easy for her not just to interact with other like-minded wheelwomen, but to inspire members of the community in turn. “I’m somewhat shy in real life, but online I’m much more outgoing,” she says. “It’s been very positive to ‘meet’ new people and make new friends. The stories that I’ll be sharing (and have shared) are really great and I hope will inspire other people as much as they have inspired me.”

For Josie, Switchboard’s strengths are its simplicity, its scope, and its ability to bring members of a loosely connected community together. “It was easy to step into and use. Not only getting responses but finding other topics to chime in on,” Josie says. The Wheelwomen community is spread out across the country and bound together only by its members’ mutual love of biking. Switchboard gives its members a place to connect in collaborative, meaningful ways. “The bike riding community isn’t just in ‘one town’ but it’s all over. Everyone has something they can bring to the table and share!”

Planning Your Switchboard Roadtrip: The Power of Community Advice

Michela and three of her friends posted an ask on Switchboard last April. The four of them were seeking advice on a roadtrip to the Southwest that they were planning for the summer. Michela chose to post on Switchboard because she had had success with Switchboard before. “I had a lot of success with Switchboard before (finding a place to stay in NYC), and I was really impressed with the effort alumni made to help,” she says.

Michela and her friends also knew that the advice they received from their community would be unique and reliable. Michela says, “Secondly, we figured that Reedies would have good perspectives on our Southwest adventures that we wouldn’t be able to find elsewhere. We’d looked through guidebooks and the internet broadly, but wanted some targeted advice or at least advice that we could trust 100%.”

Several members of their community responded with advice on where to go, what to eat, and what to avoid. “Honestly the suggestions we got from Reedies ended up being the best advice we got for the whole trip,” Michela says. “Paria Canyon and Calf Creek Falls literally shocked us into complete silence. They were both at the ends of 3 mile hikes and the incredible beauty of slot canyons at sunset and a waterfall at sunrise after a desert hike was literally breathtaking. I will probably never forget how awesome and just totally alive I felt after visiting those two places. And we would have never thought to go to them without the advice of Reedies on Switchboard.”

Some people come to Switchboard looking for a mentor, or for a place to stay. But Michela found a life-changing experience. “The other Switchboard-related story that really sticks out to me is our 3 day trek into and out of the Grand Canyon,” says Michela. “The trek was physically and emotionally grueling and full of unbelievable turns of events. It was intense and I’m not sure I would necessarily recommend people do what we did, but it is one of the things in my life I am most proud of, and is the first story I tell people when they ask what the trip was liked. Had we not been inspired by advice on Switchboard we probably wouldn’t have even had the idea to hike into the Canyon in the first place and definitely wouldn’t have had the guts to follow through with it.”

Michela adds, “More generally, that entire trip was one of the best and most important experiences of my life, and it came together in large part due to the generosity, helpfulness, and enthusiasm of the Reed community.” Our communities can change our lives if we only know how to tap into their reservoirs of experience and altruism. Switchboard makes it easy to ask our communities for help, and for our communities to respond to those asks. Sometimes this manifests as a job or internship, sometimes as a breathtaking view of a waterfall after sunrise.

Photos by Rick McCharles and Greg Willis, respectively.