Neighborhood

Many of these efforts are joined with our larger intentional community, as described in the Baltimore Banner article. Our neighborhood efforts include the following:

• Put on the 2 week Peace Park Summer Camp that is free to all children in our neighborhood. See flyer for more information.
  
  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  
• Provide a safe place to gather and play in our yard
• Join in weekly community liturgy
• Organize Friday night community dinners
• Provide food and drinks to those who ask
• Guided neighbors through the health care system and visited them in jail
• Shared our home with refugees
• Take young neighbors on fun outings to museums, parks, movies, swimming pools, libraries
• Provide short term housing hospitality
• Pick up trash in the stream and woods
• Pitch in to support the events held by others in our intentional community, many of which are focused on environmental sustainability
• Share our things, help people move, and provide rides when we are able
• Try to nurture talent and dreams
  

  POEM:

  I Am From
  By Mack Manuel
  I am from stray dogs
  From Chef Boyardee and PB&J
  I am from the shoulder to shoulder houses
  Dull colors, small backyards, the small of weed and cigarettes
  I am from chirping forests and babbling streams,
  Surrounding a cemetery with nothing but grass and a few daring flowers, yet
  thriving with wildlife and vegetation
  I’m from opening one present on Christmas eve and not eating anything before Thanksgiving dinner
  From Mother and mommy
  I’m from the men who make me wonder who to call dad and end up avoiding saying anything at all
  From “be who you want to be” and “you’re a young lady so act like it”
  I’m from going to church on weekends, music so loud you can feel it through your seats, to wondering if I’ll suddenly begin to burn fiercely when stepping into His house
  I’m from Baltimore but never saying the “T”
  Grilling food in the front yard, eating messy watermelon, and staying out as long as we can
  From eating apples and yogurt with aunts and uncles, being terrified when they told me I’d sprout a tree if I swallowed the seeds
  The empathy of my little brother, feeling what I feel, thinking what I think, and always being there even in bad moods
  The baby books everyone else had stuffed in the top of the closet next to church shoes, that I never got, The Polaroids I wish I had under the bed in a cutesy shoe box. And the many pictures lost from not backing up phone picture data
  Whether so big everyone and their mom knows it or so small I fight to remember if it’s a dream or not.
   I am from stray dogs, runaways, and beautiful ugliness.