Love Thy Neighbor

Before summer wanes take steps to unify your neighborhood by organizing a block-party gathering, charity event or bake sale to meet and greet your neighbors, and start building community kinship

By Anna Sachse
CTW Features

While most people are often too busy or too distracted to even nod a hello at the folks who live next door, studies show that it’s the strong, unified neighborhoods that are often safer, cleaner and more powerful.

Money Magazine’s annual ranking of the best places to live in America, listed Middleton, Wis. as number one in 2007, a position determined by economic opportunity, good schools, safe streets, things to do and a sense of community.

Strong communities make voicing concerns and desires to city leadership possible. A key element to that ranking, says Van Nutt, Executive Director of the Middleton Chamber of Commerce, is involvement.

Whenever the community wants to move forward with new buildings, projects or plans, city leaders, citizens, schools and businesses all get together to have meetings at the front end.

“Everybody has a chance to throw a couple of cents in at the beginning,” Nutt says. “A high quality of life comes from a combination of compromise and input.”

The success of this equation, however, comes from individual involvement as well. “The homeowners here are a little more vibrant, a little more socially driven,” says Nutt.

In addition to smaller, localized events, such as hosting safe Halloween trick-or-treat nights for neighborhood children, every year for the past 44 years the entire city has gotten together for the Good Neighbor Festival. The three-day event allows all the local service clubs to get together, says Nutt, and all proceeds go back to the community.

But if you don’t happen to live in Middleton, a great way to get up close and personal with your neighbors is to organize your own event.

And even though meeting your neighbors isn’t as easy as anymore as delivering a homemade apple pie, you can sell one by participating in the Great American Bake Sale, a national campaign by the non-profit Share Our Strength, Washington, D.C., to help end childhood hunger.

Bake sales are fun, easy and tasty, and can be held in virtually any location, such as schools, places of worship, businesses or neighborhoods.

“The campaign itself is unique,” says Shalaya Henson, the Communications Manager and Spokesperson for Share Our Strength, “in that it takes something many organizations and people already do to raise money for a cause, but takes it to a broader scale.”

Participating in the Bake Sale gives you the opportunity to both meet your neighbors as well as support after-school and summer feeding programs in your state and across the country, along with nutrition education programs for lower-income families.

“Share Our Strength has a local based approach to fighting childhood hunger,” says Henson. “The majority of funds we raise go back to providing food, nutrition education or tools and resources to local communities.”

Since 2003, the campaign has raised over three million dollars, and 5.3 million nutritious meals and snacks were served to children as a result of bake sale proceeds. This year’s event ends August 31, although you can certainly hold a bake sale outside of these dates and donate the proceeds to Share Our strengths programs.

However, you can also organize your own bake sale and donate the proceeds to any cause you wish. Urge your neighbors to participate or spend a few extra minutes getting to know the ones who stop by your table for a brownie.

If you need tips, Carroll Pellegrinelli, a Guide for About.com: Desserts/Baking has step-by-step instructions online for holding a bake sale for the purposes of fundraising.

If you’re new to town, contact your local city hall or chamber of commerce, or Google your city’s name and terms like “neighborhood events” or “meet-and-greet” - many neighborhoods already have annual street fairs, parades, tours and meetings. You can also join your local neighborhood association (or start one) and really give yourself a voice in numbers.

Whether you live in Greenwich Village, Venice, Wicker Park or Wisteria Lane, getting to know your neighbors promotes community character, safety and development. The first step is nodding that hello.

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