Fostering community in a small neighbourhood takes effort. My goal in this project was to create a sense of community among the neighbourhood kids ages 5 and up – even though we all live in a small cul de sac, the neighbourhood children barely see each other due to the busyness of school and life schedules. I thought of hosting multiple kids Kraft events in the summer and hosting the neighbourhood kids at my house so that they can create together and get to know each other through fun activities. I started by a couple of dates in the summer to host these activities. I then sent out paper invitations to families with young children and received confirmation of their kids’ attendance in specific dates. Next, I planned fun activities such as rock painting, tie dye shirt making, paper crafts and shopped for my materials, ensuring I have enough supplies and snacks for all the children who signed up for certain activities.
The activities that were planned were enjoyable for the children. They connected with each other and even spent time playing together after the crafting activities finished.
Some of the challenges I encountered were sessions with a low number of attendees due to cancellations or no shows. some of the ways I problems solved is saving some of my materials to offer Christmas crafting opportunities for the children to make use of the supplies that were left over from the summer.
