It's been a while since my last post, so I thought I'd write a quick update on my latest project: Organizing a block party with the Hanlon Creek Neighbourhood Group (HCNG).
I'm a big fan of leaders identifying problems and working with a group of people to fix them. We have a problem in many South-Guelph neighbourhoods of some students not acting like good neighbours. These students create a terrible reputation for students in general, as demonstrated by the media's framing of many stories this year (see some of my previous blog posts).
In an effort to help students build relationships with their neighbours, I asked the board of the HCNG if we could plan a street party that would help bring them together with activities for families during the day and get-to-know you stuff at night. The board enthusiastically supported the idea and we've been moving forward for about a month.
Unfortunately, we have discovered that things are a little bit worse than we thought. The first street that we canvassed to gauge interest gave us a resounding "NO WAY." They assertively expressed that they had no interest in getting to know the students who had been making their lives difficult.
We're working to see if there are other streets in our neighbourhood that are interested, but it's too bad that things in this part of the city have gotten this bad. I hope we find a location for the event, that a handful of people come and that we start building a culture of pro-actively building relationships with students to help them learn how to be good neighbours.
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