Q: My neighborhood has been engaged in the past but more and more I am seeing the core participants stop serving and as a result we have returned to apathy and it is so discouraging. Do you have any thoughts on how to change things, to get things going again. - Worried in Missouri Dear Neighbor First, thank you for your honesty. What you described—a once-active neighborhood that now feels “cold”—is something many community leaders experience. You’re not alone in the disappointment, but you’re also not alone in the calling to keep trying.  Kurt Kaiser wrote the song "Pass It On. That song includes the phrase, "It only takes a spark to get a fire going." An engaged neighbor is a spark in their neighborhood or association.  You can be a spark like Alyssa, who turned a vacant lot into a sunflower garden that brightens downtown Springfield. Or like Lyndal, who mows the widows’ yards on his street all summer to keep the neighborhood looking nice. Or like Sandi, who started a...

  Six years ago, I thought I was a good neighbor until I realized -- I was not! New people moved in, and I didn't bother to get to know their names. Eventually, I only knew one family living next to me. Yet, I still would have said I was a good neighbor. It is said that we should love our neighbors. I would have said I did, because I sure didn’t hate anyone. But the opposite of love is not hate, it is apathy. And I had apathy for those around me. Research recently finished by University of Missouri Extension shows that most Americans believe a “good neighbor” is quiet and leaves them alone. That was me! I didn’t learn my new neighbors' names. I was quiet, and left them alone. I thought I already was a GOOD neighbor. In America, we do not need more good neighbors, we need engaged neighbors. We need engaged neighbors who connect with those living around them, regardless of skin color, values or who they voted for in the last election. Kurt Kaiser wrote the song "Pa...