The Neighbor

The Neighbor A place for me to share ideas and things I do to make my neighborhood a better place maybe you will see something and do it in your neighborhood

One of the coolest things in my neighborhood
05/31/2023

One of the coolest things in my neighborhood

Front yard play is what this world needs more of, encouraging kids to get out and making sure there are others out there...
01/05/2022

Front yard play is what this world needs more of, encouraging kids to get out and making sure there are others out there for them to play with

Every year I build one of these for my neighborhood this will be the 8th one I’ve put up they are great for encouraging...
08/07/2021

Every year I build one of these for my neighborhood this will be the 8th one I’ve put up they are great for encouraging walking, interaction with neighbors and helps low income people have access to books

Anyone else’s Cory use 50 shades of gray paint to cover up graffiti instead of using the space for public art. My daugh...
07/11/2021

Anyone else’s Cory use 50 shades of gray paint to cover up graffiti instead of using the space for public art. My daughter and I chalked up this bike tunnel today thought it was hilarious she wrote her name much bigger than mine

https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fvolumeone.org%2farticles%2f2021%2f07%2f07%2f279521-little-free-baske...
07/10/2021

https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fvolumeone.org%2farticles%2f2021%2f07%2f07%2f279521-little-free-basketball-libraries-a-slam-dunk-in&c=E,1,ft89VOQWsamPgpqeEjdlwAvog2OK2_OdLbbLck5w8QA8FTNc37LNnGW9phnJFggEjsgy-XL88do836D8Z4_NGDh0BIhd2FhxlYdbVM5DQUVveNVRjQKLTiQ,&typo=1
It’s been a while since I posted sorry I went on a roadtrip with my family and been busy working on getting these little free basketball libraries upgraded to steel racks for all 13 neighborhood basketball courts. Something so simple that I hope a ton of people duplicate and copy in their own neighborhood. This one isn’t quite finished but not too bad for not touching a welder since 1998

Hey been a little while since my last post so here we go. I put in for an open seat on city council and it’s things lik...
06/02/2021

Hey been a little while since my last post so here we go. I put in for an open seat on city council and it’s things like this picture that got me to this point. How does a city replace a sidewalk and stop here and think yup that one is fine. Complete fail. Hopefully if I get on i can make a difference.

What says community more than a neighborhood thrift sale we had 118 sales in our neighborhood this year not the biggest ...
05/17/2021

What says community more than a neighborhood thrift sale we had 118 sales in our neighborhood this year not the biggest one we had but still an impressive number. This is the big one everyone waits for In my city. To give an idea of how busy it gets my kids sold 80 bags of popcorn by 1030 am and we ran out. This sale also gives me an out to sell my Wisconsin signs as a fundraiser for my neighborhood park. Did pretty well this year raising 2000 bucks In about 6 weeks. I will do another post sometime about the signs and another one about the 3 million dollar project I’m working on for that park. But again something so simple as a thrift sale all on the same day rather than going it along build community and increase everyone’s sales. It’s a win win.

Every year I put out this wheel barrel with free seeds for my neighbors it a small jester this year I put out 125 seed p...
04/27/2021

Every year I put out this wheel barrel with free seeds for my neighbors it a small jester this year I put out 125 seed packets and they were all gone after a week and it wasn’t just one person everyone respects the sign and takes one. What I get. A kick out of is I put this out to encourage walking in the neighborhood and kindness. It comical to me that people will stop their cars get out browse For five or ten minutes and pick out there 25 cent seed pack. I wonder how many other things that are a quarter could get someone to stop where they are driving for a small detour in life.

This is my dog sometimes he isn’t the best neighbor, like when he barks at every dog that walks by or the fence around m...
04/27/2021

This is my dog sometimes he isn’t the best neighbor, like when he barks at every dog that walks by or the fence around my backyard that’s the real culprit the real bad neighbor. That fence that convinces us to hide in our backyards and abandon our front porches where we see each other and greet each other and get to know each other. But at the same time this dog gets me out on walks and people want to pet him so I meet a lot of people that way so it’s a trade off. I keep a little hatred bury down inside me for those fences though.

When I think of building a better neighborhood this image comes to mind. It takes a lot of little things to make a neig...
04/25/2021

When I think of building a better neighborhood this image comes to mind. It takes a lot of little things to make a neighborhood change it’s perception. And it’s always easier if everyone does a lot of small things rather than one or two people trying to take those giants steps by themselves. What small step have you taken lately!

I shop at indie bookstores. This one in particular Dotters Books is in my neighborhood. I can’t tell you how many book...
04/24/2021

I shop at indie bookstores. This one in particular Dotters Books is in my neighborhood. I can’t tell you how many books I have bought at this little shop down the same street I live on, but I can guarantee you it’s more than all the books I probably owned in my life before it opened a few years ago. Let me tell you why I come to this place for every book I need. My neighbor owns it so it’s as local a book store as you can get, it’s also women owned and Margaret has never led me wrong on a book recommendation and seems to know about every book she’s ever sold which is amazing to me. And if that’s not awesome enough she has had the shop online only during this whole covid thing but not too much has changed I just walk an extra block and a half and pick up my books out of her front porch and when I do there is always a hand written note filled with care. You are totally sold on shopping here already right? Well I’m not sure if it’s because she’s a friend or if it’s because I buy a lot of books but more often than not there is an extra book thrown in for one of my kids or something that’s a really good read for my wife. When they are open they fill the store every Saturday with kids for story time. She’s always seems down with whatever ideas I throw her way like a little free library walk that ended at her store to help promote the libraries i put up in the neighborhood and her business. When I asked her to sponsor the neighborhood thrift sale signs she didn’t blink and said absolutely. There is nothing better than a local shop with great service and for all of this is why I shop at indie bookstores.

To me this is more than just a door. This is the first change I made in my neighborhood. When I moved in I took my kids ...
04/24/2021

To me this is more than just a door. This is the first change I made in my neighborhood. When I moved in I took my kids 4 and 2 years old down to the neighborhood park. Needless to say soon after they needed to use the bathroom. Well it was locked and I didn’t understand why. So I reached out to the neighborhood association and they said it was city policy to lock the shelters unless rented out for a party. This didn’t work for me so I joined the neighborhood association steering committee and pushed to get them open. We reached out to the city and they said we needed to raise 8000 dollars for security upgrades. I said no problem I will be back in a couple of months. After a few months of fundraising I had the money and was going to announce to the committee. Low and behold someone broke into the bathrooms and started a fire. I knew that the city was gonna say all bets off we aren’t opening the bathrooms. And that what they did. But I said not so fast let’s have a meeting to discuss. I went down their and told them they had no choice but to open the bathrooms since we they had accepted 8000 dollars in a community parks non profit fund on the basis they were opening the bathrooms. So from there it turned into an 18000 dollar project that included a new door on the outside of the shelter and security camera a water bottle filling station and free WiFi for the park which was needed for the security cameras. And to this day almost five years later it is the only neighborhood park that has bathrooms available. So the lesson is if you don’t like
Something be the change and don’t take no for an answer. What in your city bothers you and how do you think it should change?

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Lyndale Avenue
Eau Claire, WI
54701

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