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Make a Friend of Your Neighbor Workshop

March, 2011: Friendly House

On March 23rd, 2011 neighbors from throughout the city gathered at Friendly House for the Make a Friend of Your Neighbor Workshop.  People worked in pairs to engage in role plays, exploring questions such as:  How would you get neighbors involved in planning a block party?  Would you feel comfortable asking a neighbor to share a cord of wood with you?  How would you welcome new neighbors to your block?  In one scenario, two neighbors arranged a schedule for taking each other’s children to school to accommodate their work schedules.

Reflecting on the scenarios that everyone acted out, people shared observations:

  • Sometimes it can be difficult to ask people you don’t know yet to work together on a project, but the project can be the conduit for building a relationship
  • Sometimes we can over-plan or over-think activities; there is a great simplicity to just saying hello to our neighbors
  • Remember to provide an opportunity for all neighbors to get involved early in the planning phases of any neighborhood project so no one feels left out

The group shared their experiences and brainstormed new ideas for building a sense of community.  Some folks met a neighbor by throwing a house warming party, working in their front yard, or volunteering to plant trees.  One person stated how helpful it is to have neighbors looking after your home when you are away.  Another neighbor said the greatest benefit of knowing their neighbor was getting a dozen eggs for $1.  Someone else overcame an obstacle with a neighbor by holding a neighborhood meeting and speaking beyond her fear. 

We brainstormed gestures of friendliness that can be extended to neighbors such as:

  • Intentionally greeting your neighbors
  • Planting raspberry bushes in the front yard with a “help yourself” sign
  • Mowing the parking strip
  • Complimenting neighbors and showing interest in them
  • Updating each other on upcoming events
  • Showing with open body language that you want to talk to your neighbors
  • Watching each other’s children when running errands
  • Asking and remember neighbor’s names
  • Offer resources at a reduced rate to your surrounding neighbors
  • Work towards a common goal together
  • Host a work party when something needs to be done
  • Overcome language barriers by communicating in person with body language and gestures


The youngest member of the group, age 9, offered the following advice: when you are at the park, you can invite other kids to play and become friends. 

The group shared the following community resources, book recommendations, and upcoming events:

Explore Tips for Preventing Conflict with Neighbors or the Supportive Neighbor Checklist; both handouts were provided at the workshop.

May, 2010: Fulton Community Center

On May 6th, 2010 a small group of neighbors gathered at the Fulton Community Center for the Make a Friend of Your Neighbor Workshop. People worked in pairs to create skits based on scenarios for getting to know you neighbors.  Would you feel confident enough to go introduce yourself to a neighbor?  If you needed just one egg to complete a recipe, would you go the store or borrow one from a neighbor?  People acted out their response to various scenarios with neighbors. 

The group identified common interests and brainstormed new ideas for community building.  Two people discovered they live very close to one another and both enjoyed biking.  One person had hosted a walk from Gabriel Park to Multnomah Village telling the history of the world where 10,000 years equaled a millimeter.  The group was inspired by the idea and set out to plan a neighborhood “history of the world” walk that ended in a pot-luck at Gabriel Park. 

Two neighbors from Southwest Portland shared their stories about how they met their neighbors and the impact the relationship had on their life and community. 

Janet:
Peter and Janet were neighbors several years ago when Janet lived in a Geodesic Dome house, designed by Buckminster Fuller, on an acre of land.  Janet had a tracker lawn mower and Peter had goats.  Whenever Janet had friends over, they would go to the fence and visit the goats.  But Peter had to get rid of his goats and now needed another way to take care of his yard.  Peter asked to borrow Janet’s lawn mower.  She said yes, in exchange for Peter maintaining the lawn mower.  Peter would sharpen the blade and tune up the engine.  Even when Janet ran over a rock and popped one of the tires, Peter fixed the flat tire.  It was a really good deal for both of them.  When Peter went out of town, he would ask Janet’s daughter to care for his chickens and ducks.  That involved letting them out in the morning so they could roam, and ensuring they went back at night.  “That gave my daughter a sense of responsibility.  When you have a good relationship with your neighbor, you have mutual interests that you can benefit,” Janet said.  One day when Janet came home, there was a bunch of daffodils on her porch from Peter. “Besides all the functional things we could do for each other, there was caring, it was nice.” 

Will & Paul:
Will & Paul have gotten to know each other through mutual activities and an interest in ecology.  Paul and Will often visit and tour the schools.  Paul created a creative activity to help people visualize the scale of the universe, where the earth was an inch. “So Paul gets this big hoop…that’s the sun.  He starts with the sun and puts an itty bitty piece of clay for Mercury down on our street…and then the bigger planets are the size of a baseball at the end of the street…So that has been my enjoyment of Paul, his creativity and willingness to get involved in so many things.” Paul has mapped out the history of the universe, where 10,000 years equals a millimeter, from Multnomah Village to Gabriel Park.  “When I was in the mood and had the courage,” Paul would connect and chat with Will.  The greatest benefit that their relationship has had is “exposure to new and creative ideas”.  Will said that the way to meet your neighbors is “getting off your duff and doing it, connecting with people with common interests or unique differences.” 

Explore Tips for Preventing Conflict with Neighbors or the Supportive Neighbor Checklist; both handouts were provided at the workshop. 

February, 2010: East Portland Community Center

On February 25th, 2010 fifty people gathered at the East Portland Community Center for Make a Friend of Your Neighbor.  This interactive workshop began with a lively Greeting Circle and was followed by five pairs of neighbors speaking about how they met their neighbor and what impact the relationship had on their life and community. 

Q & A
Following the inspirational stories shared by neighbors, folks had an opportunity to ask the group questions.  “How do you get people to show up for your events?” one person asked.  The group brainstormed ideas including providing food, making a personal connection, letting people know in advance, doing follow-up or reminder calls, involving the children, and making it relevant to their interests.  One person’s neighbor has a portable fire pit that “calls everybody outside” anytime it is lit in his front yard.  Another person asked, “How do you connect to your neighbors in a downtown apartment building?”  Suggestions included baking cookies, meeting through your pets, or leaving notes on bulletin boards or in the elevator. 

Skits
Following the Q & A, people worked in small groups to develop a 2-minute skit based on a scenario that was given to them.  The skits could be made-up or based in a personal experience.  They could convey comfortable or uncomfortable situations.  When we came back together, each group had the opportunity to perform their skit for the large group.  The scenarios addressed how to meet new neighbors, overcome obstacles, share skills, and develop positive relations with your neighbors.  A written review of the skits could not possibly capture the creativity and humor displayed in the skits—there was uproarious laughter! 

Gestures of Friendliness
After the skits, we discussed gestures of friendliness that you can extend to your neighbors.  We went around the room and each person told about how they met a neighbor, deepened a relationship with a neighbor, or overcome an obstacle with a neighbor. 

Ideas included:

  • Offering to take care of their pets
  • Being out in the yard and swapping bulbs and plants
  • Helping get the car out of the snow or helping to jump the car
  • Walking the dog
  • Taking over a plate of cookies with our phone number on it
  • Inviting them over to watch a movie or game on the big TV
  • Learning about their culture and customs
  • Helping them with their kitchen remodel
  • Cutting a gate through our fence to be able to go to and from each other’s yard
  • Sharing produce with each other
  • Cleaning their gutters in exchange for cookies
  • Sharing our love of foreign films
  • Offering the use of my sit-down mower if he would maintain it in exchange
  • Being honest about something that was bothering us
  • Taking down our fence between us

Explore Tips for Preventing Conflict with Neighbors or the Supportive Neighbor Checklist; both handouts were provided at the workshop. 

 

Jeff & Dan: Sunnyside Neighborhood
Jeff and his wife were “craving community connection” and moved into Sunnyside neighborhood.  Within a month of moving in, they were greeted by all the neighbors and invited to a party.  Jeff explained that in his old neighborhood there was no communication and so “problems just festered, people just trying to avoid each other”.  In his new neighborhood “people are talking…makes it seem like anything is possible.”  Dan grew up in a rural community where everyone knew each other.  “You couldn’t spit on the sidewalk without someone catching you,” Dan shared.  He wanted the same kind of community for his children.  “Times have changed.  It has taken a lot of work to get our neighborhood to a place where families get together and know each other.”

Rebecca & Carla: Springbrook Neighborhood
Rebecca has lived on her street for 11 years where “the kids would be carpooled together….the immediate neighbor had potlucks…I started hosting an annual winter party where everybody on the street was invited.”  Rebecca moved there as a single mom and immediately found other single moms “because we need each other for help.”  Carla and Rebecca met each other through a mutual friend.  Carla explained that they depend on one another.  “Between the two of us, we have a full set of appliances.  I wouldn’t be able to bake without Rebecca’s oven and she is dryer-free.”  They take care of each other’s animals and Rebecca hires Carla’s children to take care of her yard.  Right now they are working together on solving a noise problem, “noise that is coming from my house when I’m not there,” Carla says.  Rebecca believes that “neighborhood collaboration” really does work.  Everyone knows everyone else on the street by name.  Rebecca spotted a quote on the wall that rang true for her, “A neighbor is a person who can get to your house in less than a minute and it takes two hours to go back home.” 

Mr. Alton Harvey: Murrayhill Neighborhood
Alton stated that “in order to gain a friend, you must show yourself friendly.”  He uses these tools to “reach across ethnic, racial, economic, and academic” lines.  He founded an organization called Get to Know Your Neighbor.  Alton first met his neighbors when he went up to the doors and said “Hello.  I am Alton Harvey.  I live here and have been at this address for 11 years.  My house make-up is my wife, my daughter, my grandson, and my granddaughter.”  And that was it.  Some of his neighbors have been around for almost twenty years and don’t know one another.  Alton was determined to make a change.  “During the time after 9/11, I saw some isolation.”  Alton went to introduce himself to a Persian family that lived a couple of doors down.  When he opened the door, Alton opened his arms to him.  I told him, “You might be at a place where you feel left out or uncomfortable and I want you to know that I am your friend and your neighbor.”  The first event they hosted was a community potluck picnic where neighbors were “invited to bring their own ethnicity, culture, and race in the form of food.”

Corey & Jason: Overlook Neighborhood
Jason moved from an atmosphere were people “come home and hide in their homes” and he wanted something different.  Within a week of moving into his new home in the Overlook neighborhood, there was a “block party on our street in front of our house.  We now know neighbors within a 6 block radius.”  Jason believes that one of the most important things is to have “somebody willing to put the work into organizing that [a block party], and help bring the community together.”  Corey believes that every neighborhood has a lot of those organizers and “you have to figure out who they are and encourage them a little bit”.  Even if you are not a extroverted person, Corey suggests that you can tell the extroverts or the organizers in your neighborhood if you “want to meet people, that there is interest, and that kind of fires a person up to get organizing a party or an event.”  They explained that sharing food and sharing skills with one another was a great way to develop a relationship.  Corey had seen what Jason could do with “a canoe, a kayak, and beautiful furniture he had built.” When he offered to make something for their home, Corey was thrilled.  “Now we eat all the time together and share games.”  Jason believes that when you provide something for your neighbor it can “become another bridge to meet people in your neighborhood and find bonds with your neighbors.”  Corey has a big tall ladder that Jason borrows.  Jason cleans his neighbor’s gutters with the ladder.  “It’s just a little thing to do and the neighbors enjoy it.” 

Andrée, Jenn & Alison: Woodlawn and Concordia Neighborhoods
“Jenn and Andrée, funny enough, are in the Woodlawn neighborhood and Mike [Allison’s partner] and I are in the Concordia neighborhood.”  Allison, Mike and their son Henry moved to Portland about 3 years ago from England.  When their neighbors next door “brought some food and welcomed us to the neighborhood”, they were shocked.  “You don’t really get that living in London.  It is a big city and you live next to a lot of people.  But you don’t generally know their names; you don’t know anything about them.”  They thought, “This is great, everyone is so friendly”.  So when Andrée and Jenn moved in, Allison baked them banana bread and took it over.  Now they think of themselves as family and “fight over who gets waved at more by Henry”, Jenn shared.  When Andrée and Jenn were looking for a new home, they made a wish list.  “And one of the things we really wanted was good neighbors.  We got great neighbors!  We felt really blessed by it.”  In their neighborhood, there are many families who have been there for 35-40 years and “we are really grateful to have the retirees watching over the house” and to have “people of similar age to hang out with and go to dinner and take care of each other’s children.”  Allison enjoys the annual block party and thinks “it is a great way to get to know the neighbors.  She sees the people in the park and says, “Where do I know you from?  Oh, I met you at the block party.”

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