Around here they are tolerated...mostly. The town I used to live in (and still work in) has banned their door to door work. The only time any witnessy activity takes place there is if a call or study moves into the area or if the dubs who live there manage to start up a study with a neighbor. They used to love to stop and "say hello" to me at work. I hated it. Hello, working here! I knew they were just padding their time. Of course, when I became inactive I'm sure they felt that I was a bona fied "call".
They will occassionally get very daring and do supermarket parking lot witnessing in that town (the one they are banned in). They've been told they are on private property and that the store absolutely doesn't want them there bothering their customers, but they are doing Jebooboo's sacred work so they don't have to obey anything they don't feel like obeying, doncha know. It's such a cool way to dump place dozens of magazines in under a half an hour and pad their time slips that they can't resist. They dragged me to this fun fest of covert rag placement once. It was sort of an epiphany for me at the time...first time I ever outright refused to participate in any dubby activity.
So, their rep in this area is mixed. They made a number of enemies when they built the new KH several years ago, but I don't know if their neighbors are still upset about that or not. Its not like they have any congregation picnics, ice cream socials or rummage sales that make lot of noise or anything.
As for giving back to the community? Hahahahahahah!!! Oh yeah, sure. Dubs, as a group, do nothing charitable for anybody else. If there is the possibility of a convert...then they might love bomb such to death on an individual basis. Such love-bombing may include driving those without cars to appointments, buying groceries or clothing for especially needy potentials, and doing errands and such. If the study doesn't progress, of course, they usually drop them like a hot potato.
