Neighbors = Community

[drbrettschneider]

I just want to shout out to our non-intentional community. We had 8 cubic yards of dirt delivered recently to fill these garden beds we built in front of the house, and it was a neighborhood effort: our next-door-neighbors moved their cars and let us dump the dirt on their lawn (they have also been putting their chicken waste in the garden beds), our across the street neighbors left their tool shed unlocked for us to get shovels and wheelbarrows while they were out of town (they also lent us the tools to build the beds last fall!), and our back-of-house neighbors showed up to help us move the dirt. We also got another shovel & wheelbarrow from the neighbors on the corner – not to mention a place to dump the cubic yardn we couldn’t fit in the beds!

Through many hands and MANY wheelbarrows, we were able to distribute all that dirt in just a couple hours – including a coffee & breakfast break.

We moved to Tacoma recently, and I want to say we got lucky with our neighbors, but we also did a lot of work to make it happen. When we moved in, we baked a bunch of cookies and put them in bags with an introduction letter (including a labeled pic of us with our contact info) and went knocking on doors to get to know the people around us. And then we really intentionally started relying on our neighbors, asking them for tools and help with whatever we could think of. Soon enough they were dropping plants and eggs and veggies at our door, and many of them who didn’t know each other before are spending time together, too.

They even dropped off a bucket full of worms for the garden for @m.frankit.t’s birthday!

I think it would have been so easy (and has been in the past, for me at least) for us to think of our community as the people we intentionally in a space with – our shared home, our shared property, our shared interest group. But when we came out here we were very clear about wanting to put deliberate attention & intention into manifesting a community that already existed around us, and it has been so successful.

[RionaAndLogan]

I’m so glad this has been your experience, likely because of the initial work you put in when first moving in. That story reminds me of my childhood on 63rd Ave. in NE Portland, we had a 4th-of-July party each year that rivals the professional displays, almost. And us kids were always playing outside together, I don’t see that as much now adays. When we moved out to a smaller city back in summer (West Linn OR), I hoped that our apartment complex would be very neighbourly. While some people here are nice, some have no desire to visit. The neighbours next door are nice, but very unreliable and so I can’t count on them though they’re super kind people. I’ve been thinking of trying to gather others in the complex to organize events and so on, but our manager made it very clear that she wouldn’t help in any way (one of those people who does their job, and no more), so I’d have to post fliers old-school style at the garbage and recycling stations and see if people can email me if interested in meeting and then go from there. I figure since I’m not in community yet it might make sense to at least try and get something going here. But the fact that no one has succeded so far makes me dubious of it even being a good idea to try, maybe people want to be left alone, but we’ve got common yards and so it would be nice to do things, at least come spring, but in winter it would be hard since there’s no indoor common space.