What you are talking about is the “importance of community”. All members have some skill, knowledge or abilities that they can contribute to the whole community. Growing up in a small farming community it used to be this way. Now that there are fewer farmers it is getting less so.

Our VFD (volunteer fire department) used to have an old “Deuce & half” army surplus water truck. They kept it WELL past it’s usable life because with its 6x6 chassis it could get where other trucks couldn’t. Great for dealing with wildfires. The younger men that served on the crew always wanted to get rid of it because it was too slow. It had a Governor on the carb limiting it to 45mph at best. The insurance would not allow them to modify engines. My dad had been a truck driver in Nebraska National Guard 1960-64 and knew a few army trucks on how to get around this. He gathered up the old WW2 vets that had similar knowledge and put on a little clinic to train the young bucks. It worked. The kids realized that this truck (if used properly) was amazing. They would then fight over who GOT to drive it! After that any new recruit had to go through my dad’s clinic before they could touch “his truck”.

The old timers were valued. They couldn’t drag a hose or climb the ladders… but they possessed knowledge from their experience that the young men didn’t. Without this knowledge they could not do their job to its fullest. Each contributed what they had towards the common goal.

(When the old truck finally wore out, they replaced it with another army surplus truck. Much newer and now 5 tons so it could carry more water. They still call on older vets with first hand experience with the truck to help train the young men on “army tricks”)