Friday afternoon I met with the members of our Northwood Hills Community focus group. We spent time celebrating all of the activities we did in support of the Northwood Neighborhood adjacent to Southeast Elementary.
All of us agreed that the community block party we hosted in October was a success.
The parent training night we had in February worked well, although we would have loved the turnout to be better.
A representative from the Kansas City Police Department informed us that the neighborhood had done a 180 degree change. Calls to the area are down. Instead of being called when neighbors are arguing--the old way--they are now being called for real issues.
We talked about doing something in the summer. But the Park Hill School District, the city, and the community have plenty of programs planned for the summer. Parents of school-age children at Northwood have many options. They don't need us to offer them something else.
We may do some sort of backyard program for kids (something like a character club) although we need some things to fall into place for this to happen.
We will conduct a school supply drive at the end of the summer. (I am thinking of asking some local churches to join us?)
I tell you all of this because it really feels like our little community partnership has made progress in Northwood. As we debated what had changed, we kept coming back to that block party in October. It was the real catalyst for change in this community. We simply invited the residents to a neutral space and asked them to start talking to each other. They've done the rest.
Could it be this easy? Could it be that all we needed to do was to give this community an opportunity for people to break-through the invisible barriers they had erected between themselves? Did we really help transform a community by encouraging people to talk to each other?
It's got me thinking about the power of one catalytic event; it's got me thinking about simple service; it's got me thinking that this serve, love and change thing is working.
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