Day 31 -- Attending and helping at neighborhood festival

"Three things in human life are important. The first is to be kind. The second is to be kind. The third is to be kind."
---Henry James

This quote seems especially true when it comes to neighbors. Having kind neighbors and a kind community to live in increases one's quality of life. When we first moved to the Washington area, we lived in a neighborhood where everyone seemed to leave early in the morning and return at night. Fortunately I met two very nice families with young children like I had, and it was the kindness of these two nearby neighbors that made living there bearable and fun.

Next we moved to a Mayberry-like neighborhood in Bethesda, which I miss to this day. Then to Chevy Chase, where we stayed only two years but met some very kind and friendly neighbors who made us feel like we were in a strong community.

In our current neighborhood, we initially didn't feel very connected to the community (other than a few special neighbors) but over time that has changed. One woman in particular -- Renee West -- has taken on the demanding task of organizing a neighborhood festival a couple of times a year each year for several years. And each one seems to get bigger and better (often I find that those two words don't go well together, but in this case they do!).

Today a huge number of people of different ages came to the neighborhood park on a glorious Sunday afternoon to hang out, paint pumpkins, play soccer, eat snacks, get faces painted, and more. The Neighborhood Festival is becoming a tradition. You get to talk to people that you rarely see but whom may live just a few houses away, since with our busy lives we just can't get together as often as we'd like.

So in this day and age, events like this one are not only fun but necessary for community building. Though I really didn't do much with clean up, whatever I did was done with
pleasure, as I could tell by the end that nearly everyone seemed to leave with positive feelings about the festival and the neighborhood :-)