Shadow Mountain Neighbors: April 2011

Friday, April 8, 2011

I Love Garage Sales; Arvada Neighborhood Grant

Welcome Back Neighbors! You belong here,

Spring is in the air, the crack of the bat, tax refunds (just thought I'd throw that in there), trees are budding, people are outside and gorgeous sunny days are here (combined with a few rainy, snowy ones).

Spring is here and that means it's time for garage sales!

Our family loves garage sales, do you?

We had our first garage sale last weekend and we made over $200. Good signage is the key, my wife Rachelle is the sign expert. I sit around and greet people (I'm the PR guy).

And even better than a few bucks was to make smores and burgers with our neighbors. We invited Michelle and children over who've been on our block for less than a year and had an impromptu bbq.

Our children got to play, adults got to talk about real stuff and smores were eaten by all.

We can't wait for our neighborhood garage sale that usually happens the 1st weekend in June sponsored by Gary and Donna Browing. Let's get our signs ready, sell stuff and get to know one another better.

Btw, the City is finally catching up to us : )

Have you heard about the Arvada Neighborhood Grant? It starts at $100 for picnics and such and goes up to $10,000 for bigger neighborhood projects. Read more here (thank you to Mike and Nancy for the heads up).

Last year we were ready to pull off Bikes, Boards and Brunch (fixing bikes for local children and families) but fall and winter caught up to us.

The Neighborhood Improvement Grant applications must be submitted by April 22, 2011 and grants should be awarded the beginning of July.

If enough of you want to plan Bikes/Boards and Brunch together or something different, please let me know and we may just pull this off.

Btw, last year I sent City Council members as well as the author of a book on Neighboring our neighborhood updates and they are all very proud of our efforts. For more read here and here.

Have a great beginning of Spring and see you around the neighborhood,

Your neighbor,

davidTrig

14235 W. 70th Dr. Arvada, CO 80004

303-859-8822 cell

Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)

Our Brief History

On Sunday, June 27th, around 50 people, children, young and old (and pets) came together to:

1. Get to know each other
2. Become better neighbors

How did this start?

My wife and I moved into the neighborhood March 2008. The next day, our neighbor Donna brought us some brownies, that made us feel so welcomed.

But then, the following week, someone called the city on us because our grass was a bit long. Suddenly, we didn't feel very welcomed.

One night around 2am we heard fire trucks on our block. A fire had started just a few houses down and one person died. It was a difficult experience for all of us. Our family made a sign that said "Our Thoughts and prayers are with you - W. 70th neighbors" That made us realize how during difficult times, neighbors have to come together and support one another.

So we asked, what if we make an effort to begin to get to know our neighbors so that we too can welcome others with brownies but when there are issues, instead of calling the city, we can just talk as neighbors about dogs, fences, noise.

And what if we go beyond that to actually have fun together, support each other when someone's in need, enjoy each other, serve others together.

So my wife and I started by having an open house Thanksgiving, 10-12 people, neighbors came.

Then for Halloween we had story time on our driveway, 5-6 children stopped by.

Then we had a Super Bowl party, again about 20 people came. Then on Easter we had a bounce house on our front yard and a few came bye.

Then, my neighbor Gary came over one day and said, "hey David, what if we plan the next one together at the park" and so we passed out flyers, knocked on doors, talked to people 1-1 and 50 people showed up!

Statistics say that most people want to get to know their neighbors, but don't know how, have had bad experiences or perhaps don't see the point. But from all I've read, most people at some point feel pretty isolated and alone in their homes and neighborhoods.

We want to make our neighborhood a friendly place once again!

So what's next?
Our next step is to make connections among neighbors.

One of the things Peter Lovenheim says in his book "In the Neighborhood" (link above) is that one of the goals of neighborhood events is to connect people to each other.

1. Become part of our Neighbors Team - pass out flyers, brainstorm, organize next events

2. Help with publicity (design flyers, social media, twitter, facebook, evites, add to blog) for next event at the end of the summer.

3. Send us your business link so we can add it to our neighbor's site

Let us know if you have any other ideas on how we become better neighbors this summer...

davidTrigueros
dtrigueros@gmail.com
14235 W. 70th Dr.
303-859-8822