Can neighbors become neighbors again? A Boulder project is trying to make it happen

Long before air conditioners, cars, television, social media and all the paraphernalia of modern life, people commonly strolled their neighborhoods on warm summer evenings. They stopped to chat with neighbors gathered on their front porches, escaping houses still hot from the day.

Today, people often drive in and out through their garage doors, rarely seeing their neighbors. Come evening, they stream a movie in the comfort of their homes and hunker down for another night alone. 

The result isn’t surprising: loneliness and isolation, even among neighbors.

A new Boulder organization, the Neighborhood Village Project, hopes to change that. Its goal is simple but ambitious: to help turn insular neighborhoods into welcoming, connected communities where people socialize regularly and rely on each other. 

“We want to see people move from our silos to a culture where they give and receive help from each other,” said MacKenzie Schuller, the organization’s community manager. “That’s been the way of human culture for so long, and it’s been lost now.”

Since launching last year, the organization has trained two cohorts in Boulder County and three in Denver to help residents build stronger neighborhood networks. It has also trained dozens of people online across the United States and in countries as far away as Australia and Scotland.

Across neighborhoods, Schuller said participants report more spontaneous interactions, new friendships, neighbors looking out for one another and better communication.

So far, 12 neighborhoods locally have begun the transformation, including Table Mesa, the Eben Fine Park area, Mapleton Hill, North Boulder Park, Iris and 19th Street, Iris and 30th Street and a neighborhood in Lafayette.

Participants complete 10 weekly sessions followed by four monthly meetings.

Training is free. 

“We never want money to be a barrier, or a feeling of strain on their lives,” Schuller said. “Your investment is your energy.”

Still, NVP is seeking grants and financial partners to defray costs, which so far have been covered primarily by seed money from founder Savannah Kruger, who launched NVP last June.

In the first five weeks, participants learn to introduce themselves by knocking on doors, ask what kind of community neighbors want and organize events like block parties. Nationally, program graduates have also organized community murals and childcare networks, Schuller said.

Later sessions focus on obstacles participants encounter, building neighborhood communication channels and planning further events. Participants also try to enlist enthusiastic neighbors Schuller calls “co-conspirators” to help lead the effort.

Schuller knows that close communities aren’t built in a day, and not every attempt to reach out succeeds. “It takes time to get to what we are going to build together,” she said. “Small things lead to big things.”

“There is something potent in feeling greeted. ‘Someone saw me and said hello.’ Even if it doesn’t go much beyond that, we feel uplifted, and maybe it invites you to slow down and have a conversation.”

Schuller said that in her own neighborhood, residents have since started a garden collective and launched rotating monthly dinners.

“The way it grows is actually very simple. You start embodying a community way of life, and others want to join in,” she said.

That’s the way it’s been for Katie Bridges, who lives near the South Boulder Recreation Center.

Her neighborhood was quiet, with people being “friendly, but everyone keeps to themselves.” Being relatively new there, she realized she had to step up to create change.

NVP gave her confidence to knock on strangers’ doors, finding out that “people were really happy to see me and invited me in. That felt really scary before,” she said.

Bridges hosted a neighborhood gathering in nearby Harlow Platts Park but is trying to build the effort slowly.

It was the reverse for Shelby Pawlina, who lives near Eisenhower Elementary School. Her neighborhood was already connected, through things like a garden collective that involved about 40 households so she became an NVP mentor rather than taking the classes.

Since becoming involved, she has encouraged other community activities such as parties, a book club and an art walk.

“I now feel I have a lot of friends in the neighborhood. I’m so happy to feel connected. I want everyone to feel that,” Pawlina said.

Jonathan Woodard, whose neighborhood lies between the Newlands and Mapleton Hill areas, just recently got started but says it feels “like the missing piece of life.”

He said he has learned new tools to build connections.

The area “feels more homey now. It’s still small, but we are accumulating changes that accrete,” he said.

Schuller said communities are built by the people who live in them, starting with new connections that ripple outward. The process doesn’t need to be expensive or sophisticated.

Pawlina agrees, noting that “we want entry to building community to be extraordinarily low. It takes maybe just one person to be a bit vulnerable and brave. If you are interested in this, we are explicitly reaching out.”