Top Five Ways You Can Make Your Community Better
1) Take Care Of Your Community
If everyone took a moment while they were out walking to pick up a few pieces of garbage, could you imagine how clean our neighbourhoods would be? Taking care of our community by cleaning up garbage, removing graffiti and more helps to instill a sense of pride in the community for everyone.
2) Volunteer
Volunteer, somehow, anyhow, just try to volunteer for something in your community. Manpower hours are the single most important resource for bettering our communities, whether it’s by helping organizing events, building a community playground or becoming an active member of your community league.
3) Invest in Your Community
It’s not just a trend, spending your dollars locally is something that used to be done on a regular basis by my grandparents generation. Start looking around now at the little independent shops and make a conscious decision to frequent them. Start looking around at the smaller clothing boutiques that carry better quality than huge stores do. Choose non-chain, locally owned restaurants every time you eat out. Give up the brand name coffees and support your smaller local shop. You’re going to not only get a great coffee still, but you’ll get to know the person who’s actually giving you a real smile from across the counter. They also most likely live in your neighborhood, so you know exactly where your dollars are going to, a local family. This is probably the number one thing we can do to better our communities, by supporting our local businesses.
4) Get to Know Your Neighbours
There are a few neighbourhoods in my city that I would love to live in simply because everyone knows each other. I find that older neighbourhoods tend to be a closer knit community than the newer ones, perhaps because they now have the years of knowledge behind them. Community events, impromptu street parties, some of these neighbourhoods have multiple yearly events that encourage getting to know your neighbour. On a small scale, getting to know the people on your street is something we all should attempt to do. Not only does it make for a happier neighbourhood, but it also makes for a safer one as well. My neighbours watch my house for anything out of the ordinary when we are on vacation and we return the favor as well! Knowing who belongs where is one of the simplest ways to keep your street safe, making it easier to see when something is wrong or out of the ordinary.
5) Take Care Of Each Other
Within the ideal of getting to know your neighbours is the responsibility we all have to take care of each other. Do you have elderly people on the street who can’t shovel the walks easily? Shovel their walks when you have a moment. Better yet, start teaching your children to help out others on the street. We will all get out with shovels in the morning after a snowfall and clear the sidewalks for a few neighbours when we can.Teaching the next generation to take care of others makes for a better community in the present and for the future. This isn’t only for winter, fall leaves need raking, lawns need tending, Helping others in your community betters your community in so many ways!