52 Weeks of Neighboring - Week 17

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52 Weeks of Neighboring - Week 17

Neighboring Tip of the Week - Support a business in your neighborhood.

Hello friend! We hope this neighboring tip finds you well.

This week, we’re thinking about how part of neighboring is simply supporting the various assets throughout our neighborhoods. We know that a lot of businesses have experienced hardship in the midst of this pandemic, so this week, we encourage you to support one of your neighborhood businesses.

Before experimenting with this tip, we encourage you to think through four questions:…

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52 Weeks of Neighboring - Week 16

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52 Weeks of Neighboring - Week 16

Neighboring Tip of the Week - Take a walk in your neighborhood and collect trash.

Happy Sunday, folks!

This week’s neighboring tip classic comes to us from Neighboring Movement co-founder Matt Johnson, but he borrowed the tip from his mom, Glenna, so we give her the credit (for a great idea and for a clean neighborhood).

Glenna began taking walks around her neighborhood a few years ago, and upon doing this, she started to take bags with her in order to pick up trash….

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52 Weeks of Neighboring - Week 15

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52 Weeks of Neighboring - Week 15

Neighboring Tip of the Week - Help develop your love for your neighborhood by writing down 3 things each day that you like about your neighborhood.

Greetings friends! Can you believe June is almost upon us?

After reading this week’s tip, you may be asking yourself, “How does practicing this experiment help us to become better neighbors?”

Well, at The Neighboring Movement, we believe one first step to becoming a better neighbor is simply to love your neighborhood.

And we have a secret for you:…

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52 Weeks of Neighboring - Week 14

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52 Weeks of Neighboring - Week 14

Neighboring Tip of the Week - Check in again with your neighbors.

Greetings on this fine Sunday, friend!

As you probably have noticed, we are in the routine of releasing this particular neighboring tip every eight weeks. Why? Because we think checking in with our neighbors regularly is one of the best ways we can neighbor in the midst of this pandemic. Every eight weeks, we want to give you the opportunity to ask yourself, “Have I checked in with my neighbors recently?”. This week, if your answer is “no”, that’s okay, and now is your opportunity to do so! If your answer is “yes”, that’s awesome, but because so much has changed, and continues to change rapidly, in the midst of this pandemic, we now encourage you to check in with them again!…

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52 Weeks of Neighboring - Week 13

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52 Weeks of Neighboring - Week 13

Neighboring Tip of the Week - Borrow something, like a tool or a cake pan, from a neighbor.

Good day, friend!

In the last couple months, we’ve presented a few neighboring tips on spring projects. If you get in the middle of one of these projects and discover you need something you don’t already have, don’t head to the nearest store…head to a neighbor’s front door! (Yes, we realize that rhymed…)

The idea for this tip originated from one of our founder’s, Catherine’s, neighboring experiments….

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52 Weeks of Neighboring - Week 12

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52 Weeks of Neighboring - Week 12

Neighboring Tip of the Week - If you see one of your neighbors outside, intentionally strike up a conversation with them.

Happy May, friend! We hope this neighboring tip finds you full of joy!

This week, we’re proposing a tip that may seem somewhat obvious for neighboring: If you see one of your neighbors outside, intentionally strike up a conversation with them.

Again, this tip may seem fairly obvious for neighboring; doesn’t neighboring imply having conversations with my neighbors? It does, but again, because so many of us have fallen out of touch with these neighboring practices, we often have to start with the basics, and these basics can be hard! There’s no denying that experimenting with this tip could feel really awkward. If you haven’t really intentionally struck up a conversation like this with your neighbors before, and/or you and your neighbors have lived on the block for a while, this could feel quite awkward indeed. But this kind of simple conversation is so human, and it’s so neighboring! And, we guarantee you, it’s also so worth it!…

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The Astounding Asset-Based Approach

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The Astounding Asset-Based Approach

Hello friends!

kristopher here. I hope this blog finds you all well!

This week, I’ve been thinking about how much I love the asset-based approach and how transformative the asset-based mindset really is.

In one of my school classes this week, my professor referenced an absolutely fascinating study that was conducted in 2008. You can read the full story here, but essentially,…

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52 Weeks of Neighboring - Week 11

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52 Weeks of Neighboring - Week 11

Neighboring Tip of the Week - Reflect on the neighboring experiments you’ve attempted in the last few months.

Every few months, we like to stop and reflect upon our neighboring experiments. Doing so helps us celebrate and grieve these experiences, and it also helps us move forward in a way that allows our past experiments to shape our future ones. Have you attempted any neighboring experiments in the last few months? If not, we understand, and now you have the opportunity to reflect upon if you feel energized to experiment with any in the next few months! If so, that’s awesome, and now you have the opportunity to reflect upon what those experiences were like! Remember, even if any of your experiments feel like failures, you can still learn so much from them! “The greatest teacher, failure is.” - Jedi Master Yoda

Here are some of our tips for neighboring experiments from the last few months:…

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52 Weeks of Neighboring - Week 10

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52 Weeks of Neighboring - Week 10

Neighboring Tip of the Week - Plant a garden in your FRONT yard.

Hello friend!

We hope you are enjoying some spring weather, wherever you are! We know that the pandemic continues to change Spring plans for all of us, but one activity we can all continue to do throughout this time is gardening. Most of the time, folks plant gardens in their backyards because this offers more privacy. With this neighboring experiment, we’re turning that idea upside down. We propose you plant a garden in your FRONT yard! Planting a garden in your front yard is awesome for neighboring in the time of coronavirus for a variety of different reasons. Here are a few:…

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April showers bring May friendships

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April showers bring May friendships

As I am sitting here writing this, it is a dreary day full of clouds and rain. While these days are not my most productive, they allow me to reflect on the beauty that occurs after the showers. Some of that beauty will (hopefully!) be my newly planted garden, but more of it is in the friendships made through gardens and flowers.

My husband and I recently purchased a home here in Wichita. It is a true fixer-upper, and we love having lots of projects to do. A few weekends ago, we removed an old tree from the front yard, along with some landscaping stones. We put the old stones on the side of our house to dispose of at a later date. A little while later,…

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52 Weeks of Neighboring - Week 9

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52 Weeks of Neighboring - Week 9

Neighboring Tip of the Week - Make an intentional space on your calendar to be present with your neighbors.

Hello all! This week’s tip is a short and sweet one!

With neighboring, we sometimes have to learn to be instead of learn to do. In light of this, for this week’s tip, we propose that you simply be present with your neighbors and make an intentional space on your calendar to do so.

Being present with our neighbors first involves making an intentional choice to be in the same physical space as our neighbors….

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ReCycle Part 2: Reveal

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This week, hosts Matt and Adam continue their discussion about the ReCycle process. (Part 1: The Act of Remembering aired on December 22, 2020.) In Part 2: Reveal, we move from the thinking and reflection portion of the process to the Action piece- Or to loosely quote Adam, just go out and try some *stuff* and see what happens!

Listen on any podcast platform! Here are links to the most popular ones…

This week, hosts Matt and Adam continue their discussion about the ReCycle process. (Part 1: The Act of Remembering aired on December 22, 2020.) In Part 2: Reveal, we move from the thinking and reflection portion of the process to the Action piece- Or to loosely quote Adam, just go out and try some *stuff* and see what happens!