When I saw that Rachelle (aka Magiepie Girl) was going to be doing 30 guest posts in 30 days I jumped at the chance to have one of her posts be here! She is so inspiring. Below is my question to her and her answer! Be sure to go HERE to read the other questions and answers!
Q: How do you participate in your local community? Not the big city nearby...but right where you live. I am trying to do more locally instead of heading to the nearest big city in order to feel connected.
I happen to live in the city of Seattle, but we do all our shopping, schooling, etc right in our neighborhood. So it feels more like living in a small neighborhood than in a big city.
A good way we’ve found to connect to our local community is to live within a 3 mile radius. We chose our house because it was within walking distance of the post office, grocery stores, and library; and it was near a bus route to my husband’s work. Right now we are living car-free, so walking or biking our daily errands is one of the ways we connect with our local community. Most days I ride my bike to a nearby gym to swim. (It has an electric assist for the hills.) On the way back I stop at our local food coop and fill my saddlebags with groceries. A quick stop at the library is pretty common as well. I rely on a neighborhood blog to find recommendations for nearby businesses; and we shop at our Farmers Market in the Summer.
Choosing to go to the local public school has helped us connect to our neighborhood as well. The kids walk with a friend or carpool to school with a neighborhood family. Seeing this family every morning keeps us in touch, and we spend a lot of weekends hanging out together. In the Summer we go to the wading pool at the nearby park, which is a nice way to meet the neighbors as well.
Another good technique is to use your front yard. We planted our cutting and vegetable garden in the front yard so we could water in the evenings and talk to our neighbors as they came home from work. Another big point of connection is the swing Paul hung in the Hawthorne tree out front. I love hearing the neighborhood kids stop and play on it as their parents take them on the post-dinner stroll.
We also try to do things in partnership with other families or community groups. My favorite new thing is that we are planning to raise chickens with our neighbors across the street. We have a yard and will host the coop, and their kids will help feed the birds and gather the eggs. We also connect with the local Art Walk to get to know neighborhood artists. And of course, every Summer we participate in our big neighborhood celebration – the Solstice Parade, sponsored by our local arts council. We build floats, make costumes, and provide food in the community studio where the parade is put together.
What about you? What do you do to connect to your neighborhood? I’d love to hear your stories, because “there ain’t know where to go but together.”
Rachelle Mee-Chapman, specializes in customized soulcare for spiritual misfits. She works with clients at Magpie Girl to help them find a spirituality that fits; and hosts Flock, an online soulcare community. You can learn more about her creative approach in her free ecourse, Magpie Speak: a new vocabulary for soulcare.
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fun!
send me that one link again so i can read up! :o)
Posted by: amy | October 04, 2010 at 09:48 PM