You often hear people who don’t like the way things are going say they don’t know what they could do. They are just one person. Not eating meat, recycling, boycotting Amazon and whatever their one little self would do wouldn’t have any measurable effect. Well, here’s what one person did that mattered to a whole neighborhood. If a lot of people did what Susan Curry did, neighborhoods would be having the good time her neighbors are having. She’s even passed along all the materials she developed that anyone can copy to hit the ground running organizing neighbors of theirs.
Here’s Susan describing Neighbors to Neighbors: Feeling Good in Our Neighborhood:
Organizing Open Houses came from the recognition that there may come a time when we neighbors may need to rely on each other in a disaster. It would be beneficial to know our skills and talents and our special needs so if that ever happens we can be helpful to each other.
This first round was summer of 2022. We held Open Houses on our patios. Potlucks made it easier on the hosts.
Steps I took:
1. I used the internet to access my county property tax records to collect the names of owners and how long they had lived on the street. There were 25 homes there.
2. I developed a spreadsheet with names, addresses, phone, email, number of children, pets, etc. Cells were filled in as I made successful connections.
3. I approached a woman who had lived here the longest to partner with me in creating one afternoon Open House per summer month.
4. We contacted the neighbors on either side of us to fill in and pass the spreadsheet.
5. I designed a flyer I sent to our email addresses and walked around putting print versions in mailboxes where we had no emails.
6. I responded immediately and enthusiastically to each return call or email. I developed warm connections through phone calls. People were delighted with the idea!
7. I continued to create flyers: a list of the series of events to pencil on calendars, and a flyer the week before each event to remind about the upcoming date. I asked for RSVPs for the hosts having sufficient chairs, plates/napkins/cups, and beverages.
This first year we held 4 events. I was the only one who attended all 4, many attended 3 or 2, a few only came once, Happily, 19 of the 25 homes participated.
I made nametags for each RSVP with their first name in BIG letters so I could read them from a distance and their last name in smaller letters below.
Each event was 3 hours. The first hour was mingling. The second hour, people sat down in a circle and one at a time for about 5 minutes introduced themselves and answered a question I made up for each gathering. Examples: What do you like most about living on this street? What talents do you have? What interests do you follow? What concerns do you have about the future? I went first to model it.
I also made copies of the spread sheet to enable neighbors connecting outside of the Open Houses, and I created a map of the street which was updated as more information was gathered to hand out at the gatherings.
Many mutually beneficial connections were made: babysitters offered, handy persons offered, two men found they shared a deep interest in woodworking, two women found they shared a deep interest in medicinal herbs, people gave landscaping advice and offered trees and plants, chicken eggs have been shared, and more.
We are organizing our second summer of Open Houses now.
Smiles for a more relational future,
Susan
This makes me think about collecting more examples of what people are doing, to serve as inspirations. With my overarching outreach dealing with what we-the-people can do collectively, what people can do individually is a complement to that. We are not helpless. Read my previous Substacks.
No one else has this advocacy. How can it spread? We aren’t thinking together much -- all that a radical transformation might need is good ideas!
Here’s Susan’s comment on a Substack of mine: “…for a cultural shift in who the human is…we need a means of collectively reinvigorating our will to stay faithful to making the changes that are called for...The energy and direction of the conversation you introduced here are VITAL. Let's encourage each other as we develop our ideas into actions.”
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Brilliant. Thanks for breaking this down into doable steps ... your inspiring story makes me think about how I might be more proactive about an issue I care about.
Brilliant. Thanks for breaking this down into doable steps ... your inspiring story makes me think about how I might be more proactive about an issue I care about.
And here's the CERT "map my neighborhood" exercise, via Washington State's agency website: https://mil.wa.gov/map-your-neighborhood