Communities in Action: Alex Zygmunt, President of Humanist Society of Greater Phoenix
The Humanist Society of Greater Phoenix has adopted the tagline “Humans. Helping. Humans” – and they live up to it. Whether gathering in their brick-and-mortar humanist community center or venturing into the broader Phoenix community, their team shares a belief that humanism is something you do, not just something you believe. For our April edition of Community in Action, president Alex Zygmunt shares more about HSGP’s local programs and future goals.
When did you first become involved with your chapter, and what motivated you to join?
My name is Alex Zygmunt – I’m the president of the Humanist Society of Greater Phoenix. I started here in 2015, just volunteering, and then went from there. Before my now-wife and I moved out here, I’d served on boards in South Carolina. We moved here for her to finish school at ASU. One of the things that was important to me was a sense of community. Before we moved, I decided to look up what humanist chapters were available – I stalked their Facebook page and Meetup page for a while just to see what kind of events and activities they were doing at the time. I decided as soon as we moved to check them out, go to their facility and see what I could do to help, or at least be part of that community. I found it to be warm, welcoming, and immediately signed a membership check for the two of us. And ever since then, I’ve just been doing what I can to help out.
My leadership position was not quite a volun-told situation, but I’m one of those personalities that likes to do things. Knowing that there was a community that was highly active, had lots of great programs and lots of great events, I wanted to make sure that I was not just attending, but contributing. And whenever I saw the Sunday Speaker program that they put on, and the various other events that they had going on, I immediately decided this is the place for me. I like the phrase, “humanism isn’t something that you believe alone, it’s something that you do”. That speaks to me.
How big is your organization? Has it grown or shrunk over time?
At present HSGP has around 280 dues-paid members. But we have approximately 4500 on our meetup page. It kind of varies because many of our members are what we call ‘snowbirds’. They’ll come in from the north and visit this during the winter, when it’s nice and warm and beautiful, and then leave whenever it gets a little too warm.
It seems like your chapter has a focus on action – when did it start, and why?
I’m not sure if it’s the Arizona heat that’s fried our brains, but all of us have kind of organically come to the decision that humanism isn’t just something you believe, it’s something you do. And it seemed like even when I first began, it was very outwardly focused. There were a lot of programs that were inwardly focused, but they were also doing stuff in the community, for the community. And eventually we created a position called the Service and Participation Director for our board, and that program has expanded to do things not just within the community center itself, but going out and visiting other organizations that are aligned with humanism and supporting them where we can, working in solidarity with them.
One of our local partnerships is ASU’s Project Humanities with Dr. Neil Lester. Amazing human being. He does a lot of wonderful work for the community, wonderful talks, wonderful homeless outreach, all sorts of stuff. Whenever we see an organization, say for instance, Black Lives Matter Phoenix chapter – one of the things that we’ve learned is that we can’t invite people in, especially if they don’t feel welcome. We have to go to them and say “hey, we support you, and we want to do what we can to help. Not to take over what you’re doing, but add to it wherever we can.”
Could you tell me more about HSGP’s Little Free Pantry and Little Free Library?
We’re sort of situated between a high school and some other schools in the area. We have a lot of neighborhood kids that walk past. And our community center, while in Mesa, is not in a particularly economically affluent area. We see kids that may not have a full meal that day. It’s also a highly religious area, so those religious communities often target these kids. So we want to give them the opportunity for the Little Free Library so that we have good information getting into their hands. And if they need a snack, if they need cold water, or if they need a gatorade or even a can of soup…anything that we can do to help in any small way, with no strings attached – we try to do what we can.
How is your organization “meeting the moment?”
Much of our work is just doing those service projects. One of our long-time programs has been crocheting sleeping mats for individuals experiencing homelessness. We’ve done that for years. We teach classes on not only how to make the plastic yarn, but how to crochet the mats. And we’ll have anywhere from 20 to 25 people just sitting in a room chatting, having a good time, and doing what we can to make sure people aren’t sleeping on hot concrete, or wet ground on the rare occasion that it rains here.
How do you envision the future of your chapter, and what resources will you need in order to get there?
I’d like to see us work towards more community-focused activities – not just not being just within ourselves, but going out and being in community. I’d like to see as many humanist chapters as there are churches. That’s my goal.
In fact, one of the things that a former president and I chatted about was creating satellite chapters. Phoenix Valley is massive – it covers a huge area. So having a community center in Mesa doesn’t necessarily serve the West Valley, North Valley, or Southeast Valley. In fact, one of our friends during that West Valley initiative started a Northwest humanist chapter. Amazing human being. It’s one of those things where we’d rather collaborate than compete. And it’s working out great because if they need people there, we can go there. If they want to come visit one of our events, it’s available to them. And we want to see a community where everybody supports each other. Everybody is available for each other.
One of the things that would really help is for people who are interested in our events to just come and check us out. And if you want, please do join. If you can’t join, if it’s too far for you, create your own! The more we are in solidarity with each other, the better off we are, I think.
Anything else you want folks to know?
Please check out our YouTube channel. All of our Sunday speakers are being live-streamed on YouTube. If you can subscribe to the channel, that’s a huge, huge help for us. We’re kind of working on creating a TED Talks type of situation, where we have good information getting out into the world and trying to put a good face on humanism.