Won't You Be My Neighbor

"Won't You Be My Neighbor" showed me how Mr. Rogers set the foundation for most of what I try to do in my personal and professional lives:
*To be fully present
*To be kind
*To accept each person as they are
*To use that as a starting point for helping to make them better
*To pursue my own vision even if it is not fashionable or popular
*To learn what a neighborhood is and how to be a neighbor

Obituary of a block club leader

When Dorothy Ellringer died, the Minneapolis Star Tribune featured her work with the Park Avenue Block Club in her obituary. An excerpt: "Her cat-and-mouse crusade with local drug dealers made her a media spectacle — gripping her shotgun in Annie Oakley garb in one cover story — and a thorn in the side of City Hall politicians."

Block club vs. Raccoons

Block clubs are hyperlocal. They take on issues that matter to residents. They work to fill in the gap between the failures of private property owners and government, doing what either might but neither does. This DNAInfo account of the residents of 8300 South Saginaw Avenue in Chicago shows how perfectly they understand what block clubs can do. In order to deal with their shared problems of raccoons that have occupied a vacant house, they are forming a block club.

Mentioned in hypnogogicfun

David Potash's hypnogogicfun offers a brief summary of Chicago's Block Clubs. He notes that "We gain a strong sense of on-the-ground dynamics and activities, but missing are the clubs’ roles in the larger context of Chicago politics, economics, and change."

Excerpt from Chicago's Block Clubs

A short excerpt from Chicago's Block Clubs is available in the UWM Report.

"People Ain't Neighbors No More"

Chicago Tribune reporter William Lee connects the violence in Chicago to a decline in neighborliness between residents. Informants in the article place blame on the distractions of social media and the failure to follow legal forms for property inheritance.

Dan Kleinman think's it's "way cool" that Chicago's Block Clubs cites The New Neighborhood Block Club Manual.