Sometimes the best examples of community building don't look like community development at all. They look like cupcakes, swimming pools, quilts, volunteers, children blowing out birthday candles, and a giant American flag hanging from a fire truck. That is what happened this summer in Houston, Missouri, when the Community Betterment and Arts Council organized a birthday party at the Toni M. McKinney Municipal Pool as part of Houston's Show-Me America 250 celebration. More than 200 people of all ages attended. Two Houston Middle School Beta Club students dressed as Uncle Sam and Betsy Ross and greeted guests. There were 250 cupcakes, red-white-and-blue popsicles, prizes, commemorative coins and free admission provided by local businesses. The Houston Fire Department brought its ladder truck and helped with the ceremonial lighting of 250 candles. On the surface, it sounds like a fun community celebration. But I think something deeper was happening. Houston was building belongin...

  What if $25 could do more than buy a tank of gas, a cup of coffee or a bag of groceries?  What if it could start something? During Missouri Good Neighbor Week, Sept. 28–Oct. 4, I’m putting that question to the test right here in Republic. Thanks to an approved $500 grant from Drop Dead Generous , and a matching donor creating a $1,000 community-wide experiment in kindness. That money will purchase forty $25 gift cards from local businesses. Then the fun begins. Throughout Good Neighbor Week, those gift cards will appear in unexpected places around town—on gas pumps, library tables, at local coffee shops and cafés, and in other everyday places where Republic residents go about their daily lives. Each gift card will be sealed in an envelope with a simple message:  “This is for you, neighbor.” Inside will be a note explaining the experiment and inviting recipients to share their stories. Where did you find the gift? What did $25 mean to you that day? How did receiving an u...

  The new Missouri Good Neighbor Week Ambassador Program is for people who believe stronger communities begin with stronger relationships between neighbors. When you register as an Ambassador , you'll gain access to our new online Ambassador Portal , designed to make it quick and easy to report your acts of neighboring throughout the year and help us tell the story of neighboring across Missouri. Ambassador Benefits As a Missouri Good Neighbor Week Ambassador, you'll receive: Easy year-round reporting through our new Ambassador Portal. Free access to neighborhood training videos with practical ideas for building connection, belonging and trust where you live. Early notice of special events and opportunities happening across Missouri. Access to special Ambassador events and opportunities throughout the year. The opportunity to be part of a growing statewide movement making neighboring visible, celebrated and contagious. What We Ask of Ambassadors Being an Ambassador is simp...

  On September 3, something special is going to happen in my Neighboring 101 class. Marc Dunkelman, author of The Vanishing Neighbor: The Transformation of American Community , will join us as a guest on this Zoom link . And I’ve decided that this shouldn’t be an ordinary class session.  I’m opening the class to others who want to come, listen, ask questions, and wrestle with a question that I believe is becoming increasingly important:  What does it take to be a good neighbor in America today? I first encountered Marc’s work in 2018 while reading The Vanishing Neighbor , and I was struck by how closely his argument connected with something I have been thinking. Marc writes about something we have all experienced: the disappearance of the neighbor. Not necessarily the physical disappearance of the people who live next door. They are still there.  It is the relationship that is disappearing. We can know hundreds (or thousands) of people through our phones and social...