Summer is the perfect time to take asset building to the streets of your community. Children are out of school and families are already outside enjoying the nice weather, so get your initiative or organization to host an event that brings neighbors together to meet one another, have fun, and learn about the assets. Don’t have time or resources to plan an event? Get involved at a local fair, parade, or festival to reach out to your community or just start serving lemonade and cookies to the kids on your block. Build assets and enjoy all that summer has to offer at the same time! Here are four great examples of communities celebrating and spreading the asset message.
Ice Cream Social (Children First of St. Louis Park, Minnesota)
This event is hosted at a local park and includes free ice cream from a local ice cream shop (with their very own Children First flavor), entertainment, and family activities. This year saw the inclusion of a Sparks Fair, which featured a variety of activities that helped kids and adults find what motivates and inspires them, and even included a sparks flash mob performance.
Asset Banner Run-Walk-Crawl (Pittsford, New York)
This event includes a five-kilometer run throughout the community’s neighborhoods. Members, volunteers, and staff from community organizations are stationed along the route, each of them giving out information about a different asset. After the runners take off, other individuals and families begin the five-kilometer walk. Each participant is given a list of assets to check off as he or she visits each station. Even babies participate by doing a five-foot “baby crawl” on a gymnastics mat.
Union County Fair Parade (Union County Youth Plus of Union County, Iowa)
Who says you need to put on your own event to spread the asset message? Iowa’s Union County Youth Plus created a float that featured youth and adults in the community who were active in asset building-efforts and displays about the assets, and the float was included in the county fair parade.
Neighborhood Porch Cookie Campaign (Findlay, Ohio)
Barbara Brahm developed a simple and sure-fire recipe for strengthening neighborhoods: invite neighbors to share treats on your porch, bake your favorite cookies and provide lemonade, and spend time getting to know each other. Brahm brought her Porch Cookie Campaign idea to several community leaders and together they developed a plan to have people send in pictures or favorite stories of their porch parties to win prizes. Why has the campaign been successful? Says one mother of two boys, “It was fun, didn’t cost much, and took little time. You didn’t even have to clean your house!”
