MrEscobar says:
Hello Terri,

I applaud your effort to get involvement within your community. As you can no doubt see from your experience, voluntary involvement is a tricky business.

I have seen communities where the involvement borders on full time jobs (community members volunteer for everything). And I have been a part of communities that have fizzled out because no one had the time to be bothered by community events.

One way you can get involvement in your community is by hosting some small neighborhood events. I don't mean events for the entire community, but small get-to-know you events that can be hosted at someone's house. Could be as simple as a tea party or as complex as a BBQ. By keeping it small, you keep the cost at a minimum, you can really get to know people in your neighborhood, and no one is intimated by a large gathering of people.

Once you get to know more and more people, share your ideas with them. Try to get them motivated to participate. Maybe instead of having a printed newsletter you can have a digital one that you can send to their e-mail addresses. Hopefully, enough interest will be generated that maybe you can arrange a larger community event gathering.

This is actually a good time to start generating interest. You can use Halloween as a way to get to know your neighbors. Take your kids trick-or-treating and introduce yourself to other parents in the community when you go from door to door. Maybe have a goal of letting people know about some changes to the neighborhood you would like to get their input on, etc.


Best of luck,

RE

Answered 1 year, 1 month ago

» Rate answer:  (+0)    (-0)
» Flag as Abuse