La Casa Chica: End-of-Summer Celebration

You have found your way to the virtual front stoop of "La Casa Chica," a fitting name for the kind of home I am wanting to create. I hope it will contribute to the growing sense of connection and belonging here in my Central-Cocoanut neighborhood, in the Newtown community of Sarasota, Florida.

La Casa Chica is "the little house," modest in size relative to the other houses on the block and in the neighborhoood.

La Casa Chica is "the enchanted house," with its 1920's Spanish eclectic architecture, its emerging tradition of front-stoop and kitchen conversation, and its resident puppy, Gus.

La Casa Chica is "the home of the beloved child," brought to life through the everyday presence of neighborkids, whose natural inclinations to be social and exuberant generate the special, neighborly spirit of the place.

La Casa Chica is a reclaiming of the legitimate role and relationship of neighbor, which is often less recognized than that of family or professional, but can be powerful and transformative nonetheless.

If Jane Addams were to drop by, I hope that she might recognize La Casa Chica as Hull House reinvented, a century later...

If Jane Jacobs were to drop by, I hope that she might recognize La Casa Chica as an effort to get beyond "the mask of pretended order" that is affecting our community, and to nurture the "real order that is struggling to exist."

If Donald Winnicott were to drop by, I hope that he might recognize La Casa Chica as a place where neighbors choose to get together "to do the things which you can do better than you can be taught to do them."

And if Timothy Leary were to drop by, I hope that he might recognize La Casa Chica as an everyday, real-world, neighborhood-scale embracing of his notion that "the universe is an intelligence test."

But mostly, I hope that my neighbors will drop by.

I am ready to be a neighbor.

Saturday, August 14, 2010

End-of-Summer Celebration

Today the Neighborhood Scavenger Hunters hosted another neighborhood party to mark the end of summer. Beforehand, Amorie and Da'Sean made signs to post on the fence at the park and at Amorie's house on Cocoanut Ave.

Next they dropped off signs with fellow neighborkids on Panama Dr. and Janie Poe Dr. to spread the word throughout the neighborhood.

Later in the day, kids dragged the grill along with the folding table and a few chairs down to the Mary Dean park at the end of the block. Mr. Dennis came over to help grill, and about 25 folks showed up to celebrate.

We're establishing quite a record when it comes to neighborkid-led block parties. How cool is that?

La Casa Chica

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Saturday, August 14, 2010

End-of-Summer Celebration

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