With the City of Toronto on strike, it is more important than ever to show that you Give A Damn. While nobody knows just how long the 24,000 inside and outside workers are going to be on the picket lines, it seems that everyone knows one thing - this strike is affecting our city.

From garbage piling up to daycare centres, swimming pools, and recreation centres being closed, our city is a different place than it was on June 21. While the City of Toronto and the Unions will have to sort out their own issues, it is up to the average Torontonian to make a choice—complain about the declining state of our City, or do something about it.

There are all kinds of news stories about people benefitting from the strike: from students who are off for the summer looking after children displaced from their daycares, to entrepreneurial folks collecting and disposing of household garbage and other waste. This is not necessarily a bad thing—more like a win-win. But for those of us who aren't in a position to take on a task full-time as a result of the strike, what can we do to make our city a better place?

• Be kind to others at this time - you don't know how the person standing next to you in the subway or walking behind you has been affected by the strike. Hold a door open, give up your seat, flash a smile. All free, easy things to do to make sure that those who are affected by the strike—and most of us are—remember that Toronto is a good place to be.
• Spend 5 minutes listening to a picketer.  Even if you don't believe in what they believe in, your attention and thoughtful discussion could make their day. As an added bonus, you have more information with which to formulate your own opinions—never a bad thing.
• Be accountable—and seek accountability from others as well. If you make garbage while walking down the street, don't stuff it in an "out of order" garbage bin. hang on to it until you can find one that isn't City-operated. I know it's only a coffee cup/pop bottle/sandwich wrapper/newspaper, but if each of us who walked down the street dropped one of these items, the city is really going to start looking gross—and not like the inviting place we know it can be.
• Give it time. Whether that means budgeting time to drop off your household waste at a waste transfer station or talking to an out-of-towner about the benefits of Toronto-living (which may not be readily apparent at the moment!), your time can really make a difference to the impact that the strike can have on you—and on others.

Giving A Damn about Toronto and the people who live, work and play here may not be easy at the moment—but a collective effort to do a little bit will reap huge dividends in the long run, when people can look back at the strike and have two thoughts: first of the ongoing kind, thoughtful and positive actions of their fellow Torontonians, and, only a distant second, of the short-term inconveniences.