This evening, nine of us met up for the second monthly “community self-organizing dinner,” intended as an opportunity to come together around ideas of community self-organizing, and to reflect on how we might most optimally participate in community self-organizing for the better here in Sarasota. Those present included Hugh, Tbone, Kenneth, and 15th Street neighbors: Chunk Chunk, Holly, Dareeona, Dalisha, Allison and Dave. Here is a pic of the group (2/3 at least):
Since the diversity of individuals at any gathering influences the conversation that is generated, it seems worth noting that those of us who were present are of:
- Four neighborhoods in Sarasota: 6 from Central-Cocoanut, one from a neighborhood off University Parkway, one near Fruitville, and one from Palmer Ranch
- Three age groups: 4 kids (6- to10-year-olds), 3 adults (40- and 50-year-olds) and 1 toddler (2-year-old).
- 5 “sectors:” elementary education, county government, emergency services (fire), the arts, and neighborhood life.
So what did we talk about, and what happened? Here’s what I remember…
The kids took over dinner prep, Hugh graciously offered to help out and made an impressive salad, and Hugh, Tbone and Kenneth provided disaster response when the yellow rice was burning. Cooking seems to be one of those activities that can easily foster cross-generational collaboration.
When Kenneth arrived, the kids did not recognize him as fire chief because they expected him to be in uniform, rather than wearing a business suit. Despite the curiosity about him that they’ve expressed when he’s not present, they seemed to become somewhat bashful when he was in the house! A reminder of how anticipation can influence the way we are with one another in the here-and-now, perhaps.
Conversation among adults revealed a common past connection to…Buffalo! Three of us lived there earlier in our lives. It turns out that D.C. is another shared former hometown / hometown of relatives. An example of how sometimes the first connections we find among us are invisible ties to places elsewhere.
Hugh let us know that Kenneth is a talented chef, and it turns out his brother is a professional chef too, so it runs in his family. Tbone suggested that we might call upon this talent in the service of these monthly dinners, which I do believe could be an adaptive group response to my relative deficits when it comes to cooking J
Kenneth shared some details about efforts he is working on to develop a national meeting for fire department professionals, to take place here in Sarasota. Hugh shared some about changes in programs within the County government, and Tbone mentioned some details about the arts-related efforts he’s developed with kids who live in Newtown. Throughout, kids piped in with comments about life here in Sarasota as they experience it as well.
Although Kenneth had to leave before eating dinner, he secret-surprised everyone before he left. To everyone’s delight, a fire truck showed up on the block, with lights flashing, and the kids were invited to check it out up-close-and-personally. They even got a chance to practice firing the hose! This brought out many folks on the block, with both kids and adults commenting on how neat it was.
What struck me about this, as a child psychologist, was how timely this special opportunity was, in light of our neighborhood experience less than two weeks ago. At that time, fire trucks showed up in response to an emergency involving one of our neighborhood families, and a small group of neighborkids gathered in my front yard expressing concern and anxiety. As we watched from afar, all we could really do with/for one another was soothe each other by talking about what we were witnessing. We also played some hand-clapping games to generate some positive emotion so that the feelings of anxiety would not become overwhelming.
In contrast, the secret-surprise visit during the community dinner provided a chance for the kids to have a sense of control over their interaction with the fire truck, and to experience it as a source of excitement, rather than as an indicator of distress. It got me thinking – what if emergency responders were to make it their practice to reconnect with those blocks / neighborhoods where they have been called in for situations that are likely experienced by the children as scary, and in reconnecting soon after the crisis, to create with the children opportunities for the restoration of well-being and relationship between emergency service providers and neighbors? What if neighbors were to help emergency service providers to know when the kids on the block are expressing distress about recent situations they have witnessed, so that all of the adults – parents, neighbors, and service providers, could together help to restore the kids’ sense of well-being?
The dinner ended with another secret-surprise, this time from the kids, for the grown-ups. Evidently, the kids had been practicing a song-and-dance routine that they made up after school, and they were eager to present it to everyone. So Hugh, Tbone, Gus (my puppy), and I sat in a row on the couch (along with Dave, a neighbor who had dropped by) and we were entertained by kids singing neighborhood-related adaptations of I Carly songs, with dancing that looked like a hybrid of moves borrowed from both the Woo Tang and songs of praise they’ve learned at church.
How’s that for innovation?
The dinner left me with mixed feelings – on the one hand, I thought it was neat for us to be interacting across generations, and perhaps finding our way toward a new way of inter-relating across ages, neighborhoods, and sectors. On the other hand, I feared that the adults present might have experienced it as overly kid-oriented. But maybe I was the only one feeling this. While I have been immersing myself in the experience of neighborkids, in order to bring into focus the ways in which they naturally cultivate community in everyday ways, I have been feeling lately a bit like a stay-at-home parent who craves adult conversation at the end of the day.
All to say, tonight I think we’ll try something a bit different. I hope neighborkids will drop by, as they often do, and will hang out with us until dinnertime if they want. But then I’m going to let them know I’d like to have some time together with just grown-ups, and they’ll be welcome back after dinner for dessert if they’d like. We’ve begun using my grandmother’s dinner bell as a way of calling folks together for our monthly neighborkid dinners, so maybe we’ll use the bell to let everyone know when it’s dessert-time this evening.
So there you have it.
Hope you'll drop by next month.
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