Practice
Practices that encourage knowing and loving your neighbors and neighborhood.
Holiday Brunch
It was a bright and chilly Sunday morning in December when my daughter and I waited silently with coffee and mimosas ready on the kitchen counter. We were uncertain if anyone would walk through our door for the first Holly Street Holiday Brunch.
Halloween Hospitality
“Halloween is a boo-tiful day to get to know your neighbors.” says Kristin Schell, founder of The Turquoise Table. There is no other day of the year when more neighbors knock on each other’s door. Halloween is a unique opportunity to show hospitality to your neighbors and neighborhood.
Meal Trains
Providing meals is a nourishing way to love your neighbors. It may be for a family welcoming home a new child or welcoming a new neighbor to the neighborhood.
Pancake Breakfast
Hundreds of pancakes are served at the Gilley house every other Tuesday morning before students leave for Arapahoe High School. It began for Jill Gilley with a simple question, “What if?”
Ice Cream Social
Ice cream is an almost guaranteed way to gather people. There’s a magical connection when people come together to enjoy the endless variations of frozen cream, milk, and sugar. An ice cream social is a sweet, and simple, way to spend time with your neighbors
Wandering
Wandering is a counter script to the often overly scheduled lives centered around efficiency and productivity. Wandering is a practice that cultivates curiosity, looking to be interrupted by the world around you. When we are willing to wander, we have the possibility of being present to what is around us.
Honoring The Legacy
By walking hand in hand with the past, may we all journey forward together, writing new chapters into the richness of our shared history.
Delivery Drivers
Gratitude for delivery drivers cultivates hospitality for all those who serve us in unseen ways.
Chalking the Door
Chalk is ordinary material of the earth. This practice takes common elements and makes them holy. Chalk does not make a permanent mark. It fades with time, but each time we enter our home and see the inscription, we are reminded of our desire for our homes to be places of hospitality, welcome, and peace.
Book Club
A book club is a practice that cultivates curiosity and community. Book reading is usually considered a solitary activity. A book club invites a reader into a shared activity. A neighborhood book club is a unique collective experience of hospitality, listening, and learning.
Street Dinners
Street Dinners is an everyday practice. It has a low entry barrier to connect with your neighbors. We’re grateful to Jocelyn for sharing this practice with us. We want to learn from your practices too. Please share them with us! We look forward to sharing them with you.
Be a Regular
Being a regular is an ordinary, but intentional, practice to love your neighbors and neighborhood. It is arranging everyday activities with consistency. Being a regular provides a rhythm to build relationships.
Snow
Clearing a neighbor’s sidewalk this winter is remembered throughout the year. It provides a foundation when the seasons change. A summer backyard BBQ invitation arrives with gratitude when it comes with the gift of a clear sidewalk that winter.
