Stories of Neighboring from our Reservoir Community

May 9, 2016

Snapshots of Neighboring from the Reservoir Community!
Many of you have already communicated your experiences of neighboring to us – we thought it would be encouraging to share these as we all try to navigate our own efforts of neighboring.

“Every year there is a block party on our street.  Every year my family and I hide inside of our house.  But this year I decided to go to the Block Party planning meeting.  I immediately sign up to do the pinata, the compost bag, the bubbles….etc.  I do think that’s how to get to know my neighbors more, by “giving”. I am very protective of my time, so taking this step is a big step for me to go and do something for the block party, I kept saying “no” every year and this year actually I have a perfect excuse to say “no” with a newborn, but I said “yes” to myself.”

 

“I brought a spinach plant to my Bangladesh neighbor.  I was hoping her mom would be home because she likes to garden – but it was the daughter who answered the door.  Neither of us speak each other’s language – but it was fun to bring the pot of spinach without this obvious ease of communication.”

 

“Cambridge City Councilor dropped by today and asked me what we do to help our congregation be resilient and we got into a discussion about neighboring. He’s interested in possibly making “neighbor day” an official Cambridge thing.”

“The editor of the Scout Magazine emailed me back and we’re planning on getting dinner (she, her roommate, my husband, and me) to talk about some ideas of making our place more “neighborhood-y”. WOW. They are young renters and haven’t met anyone in the few months they’ve been here and have been missing the same things we have from their last community. I think a first step will be that they and we will create a facebook page.”

“I took a pansy plant over to my neighbor who I haven’t seen in 2 months – she was so happy she gave me a huge hug!”

 

“I started teaching a “Moving Meditation” yoga class at Reservoir Church in January. It’s a community group, so there’s no fee, but I suggested that people give whatever they felt it was worth. I promised that all proceeds would be donated to charity, in the spirit of loving our neighbors. I finally got around to counting it last night. This group raised $250, which I happily just sent to Samaritans”!