- Do you know your neighbors?
- How many neighbors on your street in your apartment building do you know?
- Have you ever invited your neighbors over?
- A couple, we know our neighbor to our left and the neighbor to our right.
- Out of a whole lot of houses on a big block, two houses is it.
- No. We have never invited our neighbors into our home, nor worked to get to know those outside of our next door neighbors to our right and left.
So with that being said... here is the teaser and the follow up link for a must read article:
by Ben Stevens
Having recently moved into an anonymous apartment complex so common around the country, my wife and I decided to invite all the people in our building over for Sunday lunch. They didn’t know each other, we didn’t know them, and we had no idea how it would be received. But most of them came. In fact, they stayed for four hours. And before long we were making up a list of our birthdays to exchange with one another, at their suggestion.
When we moved into the complex, we thought a lot about “how hard it is to meet your neighbors.” And when we discussed the idea of a get-together with the few people we knew in our building, they also commented that it is “tough to have community in the suburbs.” But we were all wrong. It is not difficult to get to know your neighbors—it is simply not something most of us value.
The result is a culture of seclusion [...]
So needless to say, after reading this article I asked Mr. McGoo when we're holding the neighbor get together? :)
If you're succeeding in getting to know your neighbors and inviting them into your life, let me know! I'd love to hear some of the creative ways you stay involved in their lives and get to know them along the way!
5 comments:
One cool thing about our neighborhood is that everyone seems to be pretty friendly--neighbors calling the police on our halloween party (wasn't us--it was a party on another block) aside.
When we lived in our last neighborhood, we knew very few of the neighbors and I was really hoping to do it differently this time. We met most of them when they came by wanting to know what construction we were doing on the house and I introduced myself to the rest when I took Autumn trick or treating. We invited all the people on our street to our New Year's party (only two couples came). Not everyone is interested in being "friends" but it really has been fun having neighbors who stop by and wave and ask when the baby is due. And one neighbor is having a baby next month so I'm getting ready to make them a frozen dinner. :D
So, Operation Don't Be a Stranger is plugging along, haha.
Sharaze! Rock star report. :) You encourage me and convict me all together in one. Thanks for sharing!!!
Great thoughts, Heather! Thanks for sharing! We've tried to be intentional with meeting our neighbors wherever we've lived. It's been a little easier since we've had the boys because they naturally make friends, and then we have more of an opportunity to talk to and become friends with the parents. I've baked stuff and taken it to our closest (in proximity) neighbors at Christmas, and I've also taken dinner to a couple of families when they've had babies. We also hosted a neighborhood barbecue when we lived in East Memphis & that was a lot of fun. You'll have to keep us posted on your endeavors :).
Thank you for sharing Katie! I'm loving the success stories- helping to spur me on and remind me that it's more than possible!
awesome article! We talked about this very thing when y'all came over--now I've got some good ideas and need to start planning! :)
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