Do you know your neighbors? There are tons of good reasons to get friendly with them - and the other folks on your street. And there's no better way than by throwing a block party.
My husband and I grew up in little rural Midwestern towns, where cows outnumbered people and the nearest traffic light was in the next town. These towns may not be the entertainment capitals of the world, but one good thing about them is the rapport between neighbors. In a place that small, you can’t help but know everyone on your street … intimately and, for that matter, practically every street in town. And because everyone knew everyone, block parties were a regular event come summer time. It isn't at all unusual to be out enjoying an evening stroll and suddenly get an invitation to someone’s impromptu shindig. The food is simple but satisfying, the company outstanding, the attitude “the more the merrier” … and the fun always lasts well into the darkness, until you can't stand the mosquitoes any more.
Fast-forward a few years, and imagine our surprise when we moved to big, bustling Las Vegas. Don’t get me wrong, Vegas is a great city. It has its charms – but a cozy, well-acquainted hamlet it is definitely not. Despite that, though, we hoped that maybe within its respective neighborhoods we would find more of a community spirit. Wrong! Even though we moved into an established, traditional neighborhood, on a street lined with houses instead of apartments, we were surprised to find out that no one knew each other – not even, it seems, enough to say a friendly hello over the fence. Flabbergasted, we made it our mission to introduce ourselves to everyone and try to bring some of that small-town neighborly familiarity into our new urban locality.
Why a Block Party is a Great Idea
Besides the fact that summer evenings are made for outdoor get-togethers, block parties are a good idea because initially, they’re wonderful ice-breakers, perfect for helping you get to know the people who live around you. Then, after the first one is successful, subsequent parties serve to forge a wonderful closeness between neighbors. And why shouldn’t we get to know (and love) our neighbors – after all, they’re the people we share our lives with! Some benefits to having a good relationship with the people on your street are ...
Safety. In a community, people look out for and protect others. Kids will be safer playing around the neighborhood because everyone helps take responsibility for their wellbeing. You can feel more secure about leaving your home unattended while you’re vacationing or on a weekend trip, because you know your neighbors will keep a keen eye on things. And you can even band together to create a Neighborhood Watch program, helping to keep crime out of your area.
Community action. When there is a sense of unity in a neighborhood, it’s much easier to get necessary changes made. Do you need speed bumps? New road signs installed? Potholes fixed? New playground equipment at the park? Mobilize your neighborhood into action and watch the positive changes that take place when everyone feels they have a stake in the community’s welfare.
Easier problem solving and dispute resolution. What if your child throws a baseball through the neighbor's garage window, or there’s a tree on their property that’s leaning precariously close to your house? Living in such close proximity to someone else, there’s a good chance that eventually you’ll have some sort of problem, whether minor or major. If you have an issue to address with your neighbors, it’s a lot easier and less awkward to do it when you actually know, and have an association with, their family. If you don’t know them, you’re more likely to get into a dispute over the issue rather than working together to solve it in a constructive way.
Convenience. Having someone close by to depend on in a pinch can be very valuable. You can call on your neighbor to give you a cup of sugar if you suddenly realize you’ve run out, rather than having to trek to the store right away. Your kids can play with their kids, and you’ll feel comfortable knowing what kind of people your children are associating with (plus, if their friends are right there in the neighborhood, they’ll tend to stay closer to home when they play, making supervision much easier). If your neighbors notice that your dog is about to pull his chain out of the ground, they can stop by and let you know. Community spirit makes it easier to network, and maybe create business opportunities.
And finally, fun! When you get to know the people in your neighborhood, you may find that many of them are quite remarkable. Perhaps you share a common interest that you weren’t previously aware of – getting to know your neighbors is a great way to find a golfing partner or a fellow scrapbooking fanatic. There is a comfortable feeling in seeing familiar faces and exchanging pleasantries on a day-to-day basis. And most importantly, if you become friends with your neighbors, your social calendar will never lack for holiday celebrations – and block parties!
Planning a Block Party
A simple backyard barbecue can be spur-of-the-moment; a block party, if it’s to be successful, can’t. To pull off a great and memorable party, some advance planning and preparation is required.
Set a date.
Although you can hold a block party on any day of the week, it’s obviously best to hold it on a weekend – preferably a Saturday – when you’ll have plenty of time for a leisurely setup and everyone can stay out late if that’s the direction the party takes. Check the forecast and plan for a sunny day, but have a backup plan just in case it rains. If it’s only a drizzle, you may be able to go ahead as scheduled, but nobody will have fun being outside in a downpour. Summer is the best time to throw a block party. Consider having the party just before, or during, the first or the last week of school; that way, there’s less risk of some of the families being excluded if they’re on vacation.
Delegate tasks.
Theoretically, you could plan a block party all by yourself – but it would take a lot more effort, more money from your pocket, and potentially be a lot more unorganized. If you want to make it a solo project, skip this step. If you’d rather have some help, call up a neighborhood task force! A couple of months before the projected date of the party, organize a planning meeting. Recruit neighbors that you already know, or if you aren’t yet acquainted with them, be bold and just outright ask if they’d be interested in helping you plan – or if they know any other neighbors that might. Tell your neighbors what you need, and assign them to be in charge of the tasks they think they’ll be best at. For example, if you’ll be having kids’ games, you could try to recruit a teacher or Scout leader to lead them. You’ll need a team of about four or five people, ideally, to organize things. As the supervising leader, you can help everyone else in their tasks, make sure that everything is completed by the specified date, and oversee the “odds and ends” such as special permits, insurance, etc.
The barbecue leader should be responsible for:
Deciding how many grills you’ll need, and who will lend them.
Shopping for meat, buns, condiments, soft drinks, and ice (side dishes, plates, cups, and cutlery will be provided by each family attending the party, pot-luck style).
Designating people to man the barbecue grills.
Overseeing who is going to lend tables, chairs, and coolers.
The public relations leader should be responsible for:
Distributing and collecting invitations and RSVPs, and compiling a list of who is donating what.
Collecting monetary donations, if you’ll be asking for them.
Scheduling entertainment, such as the fire truck (more about this later).
Providing stick-on name tags (and markers or pens) for the event, and making sure that each attendee receives one when they get to the party (first and last names, so people can tell who belongs to what family).
Contacting local businesses for donations, if desired; sometimes, in order to attract new customers, local business vendors will gladly supply door prizes, coupons, or free passes.
The children’s entertainment leader should be responsible for:
Planning and organizing children’s games: which games will be played? Can the supplies for each game be donated, or do they have to be bought? Are there enough games to entertain each age range?
Designating people to oversee each game.
Providing small prizes for the winners.
The setup and takedown leader should be responsible for:
Orchestrating both setup and cleanup of the party, and designating people to help.
Providing trash receptacles.
Ensuring that recyclables are separated from regular trash and deposited at the correct facility.
Plan to have at least two meetings with your planning committee prior to the party, the first to dole out responsibilities, and the second to make sure everyone is following through as planned. Make each meeting as short as possible, and informal. It’s important to keep a list of each person’s assigned tasks in case any dispute arises, or someone promises to do something and then forgets (it happens!). Put together a master to-do list, with each person’s responsibilities clearly outlined (maybe in the form of a helpful checklist) and all the party information, make copies, and hand it out to each person involved in the planning; that way, they’ll always be clear on what they need to do.
Get the appropriate permits.
If you have a huge back yard, a “block party” can be held there and no permit is necessary. But if you want a block party in the true sense of the word – where the whole street, from one end to the other, is blocked off – you’ll need to obtain a permit first. Once you set the date, call your local government offices or the police department and ask what it takes to get permission for a block party in your area.
Rules and guidelines vary widely from region to region, so be sure to find out all the specifics of your particular area. You’re usually required to get a permit at least seven days in advance, and most cities require a signed petition from the people in your neighborhood – with at least seventy-five percent of the neighbors’ signatures. Some cities charge nominal fees, normally ranging anywhere from twenty-five to sixty-five dollars. There may even be a special-event insurance policy required to cover incidents of personal injury (here’s hoping you’ll never need it!). Some local police departments or government agencies may be able to provide roadblocks, but it’s probably a good idea (and cheaper, in the case of possible fees) to purchase a roll of yellow caution tape to stretch across each end of the road instead. You shouldn’t block the ends of the street with vehicles in case an emergency vehicle needs to get by quickly.
If you plan to serve alcohol, you should designate a spot – someone’s garage or back yard, for example – in which to serve and consume it. Most cities have ordinances stating that alcohol can only be consumed on private property; the permit will usually outline such rules. Plus, some people may not be comfortable having their children at a function where alcohol is being served, so do it in a place that’s away from the rest of the party, and don’t allow anyone under twenty-one (or eighteen, like at a bar) to be in the area.
Invite the guests.
It isn’t necessary to go to a specialty store and have invitations professionally printed up; the invitations don’t have to be formal, by any means, and that would cost you a fortune. Probably the easiest way to get the word out is to make your own fliers on your computer, print out some copies, and distribute them to each house on your block (this is a good way to get the kids involved as well – putting them in charge of flier delivery). Here is a good example of a block party invitation, from one city’s Parks and Recreation site:
_____ Chairs to sit on_____ Food for the barbecue_____ Salad & dessert to share with others at the party_____ Beverages _____ Plates, cutlery, and non-breakable cups _____ Other:________________________________
Please join us for an evening of fun and friendship!
Do you have the following that could be used for the party?:
_____barbecue grill _____tables _____coolers
Do you have any special talents that you would like to entertain us with at the party?
No. of people from your household attending _______ Ages_______________
You can also make posters and hang them on signs and street lights if city ordinances permit you to do so (you’ll probably want to check first). Posters can be fun to make, great advertisement, and can even be laminated (relatively inexpensively) to protect them from the elements. If you have set up a neighborhood planning committee, your public relations person will be responsible for these details. Whatever your method of getting the word out, the biggest rule is that you must invite everyone on the block. You can’t just pick and choose which families to ask; that isn’t the spirit of a block party.
Plan your activities.
You don’t want to go overboard – spontaneity is part of what makes get-togethers fun – but you do want to have some sort of structure as far as the evening’s activities go, especially where the kids are concerned. Some fun ideas for block party activities:
Watermelon eating contest (try it with no hands!).
Making pictures with sidewalk chalk.
Water activities: sprinklers or water balloons, for example.
Visits from firefighters or police, with tours of the fire truck or police car. Just call the local stations to arrange this.
Face painting.
Hula-hoop or limbo contests.
Entertainment by a “house band” made up of neighborhood musicians, or just music performed by individuals.
Relay racing, such as the egg-on-a-spoon or a three-legged race.
Games such as horseshoes or beanbag toss.
Cake walk
Brief telling of the neighborhood history – this can be quite interesting, especially if it’s an older, more established neighborhood. Include pictures, if possible, of your street at different time periods.
Card games, dominos, or bingo.
Talent show.
Breaking piñatas.
“Lawn sports” such as badminton, whiffle ball, volleyball, croquet, or Frisbee.
Bicycle decorating and parade.
Pet show.
Develop a theme.
This isn’t a necessary step; sometimes “togetherness” is the best theme of all. But if you want to liven up the party, you may want to include a theme. You could do a luau theme with Hawaiian-style decorations like tiki torches; a “summer” theme with beach balls, flip-flops, sand and sunglasses; or a patriotic theme (it doesn’t have to be the Fourth of July to do this theme; it’s appropriate all summer, and you may even be able to purchase patriotic decorations at a discount price if you wait until after the Fourth).
If you don’t want to do an all-out theme, just a few simple candles can make a big difference in the ambiance. Even better: make them citronella candles – they do double duty by keeping the bugs at bay.
Plan the menu.
Unless you want to be stuck with a humongous food bill and a ton of responsibility, it’s best to organize the block party dinner pot-luck style. There’s nothing wrong with asking your neighbors to bring side dishes and beverages to share, and it ensures that you’ll have a variety of dishes available. (If your neighborhood is ethnically and culturally diverse, it might be fun to ask each family to bring a dish specific to their heritage. You might be surprised at the types of cuisine you’ll end up liking!) Make sure you have a big enough table! To make things easier, you can assign even-numbered houses to bring side dishes and/or salads, and odd-numbered houses to bring dessert.
You provide the meat, because it’s hard to separate which meat belongs to whom while you’re cooking; not only that, but it wouldn’t be fair for some people to dine on thick porterhouse steaks while others are eating hot dogs. Hamburgers and hot dogs are easy to grill and don’t require tons of preparation. You may even want to buy a couple packages of veggie burgers or hot dogs, in consideration of vegetarian families and the more calorie-conscious. Meat can be expensive, so consider collecting money beforehand – or setting up a “donations” can at the party and asking everyone to throw in a couple of bucks if they can.
You’ll also want to provide the ice, and possibly some drinks (some people will bring their own), so make sure you have plenty – and plenty of coolers to stock it all in. A good estimate is about a pound of ice per person in attendance. It’s completely appropriate to ask your neighbors to bring their own cups, plates, utensils, and napkins, but make sure you have a few extra packages of such items on hand for those that forget.
Block Party Odds and Ends
Make sure that you have a record of everyone who attends the party.
If you have a disabled or handicapped person coming, go out of your way to be as accommodating as possible: activities they can participate in, wheelchair-accessible areas, etc.
Reward children with a prize for picking up garbage at the end of the evening.
To maintain home security (and the cleanliness of your bathroom!), have everyone use their own bathroom – one of the benefits of all party guests being close to home!
Make up and distribute an evaluation form to each family in attendance. This way, you’ll know what people thought of the party, what they would change, and what you can do to make next year’s party successful. On the form, ask them questions such as the three best things about the party, suggestions for next year's party, how they would like to maintain connections with their neighbors during the year, and if they would be willing to help with future events.
Post signs the day prior to the party reminding everyone that the street will be closed.
Ensure that you take proper safety precautions in every area: food preparation and storage, home security, and proper supervision of children, to name a few.
So many of us just co-exist with our neighbors, without any sort of personal relationship – not even enough for a friendly greeting. Block parties are the perfect way to bring a sense of solidarity and belonging to your neighborhood. What better way to make neighbors into friends than with food and fun?