The Block Party

My night ended at 1:30 am with folding last minute brochures and placing ribbons on give aways. I found these very cool animal flashlights that when their mouths opened the light would illuminate and the animals sound would come out. I gave them to all of the kids that visited as a gift to keep by their bedside. Anyway, last minute calls were still coming in at that hour and the excitement of the event kept us awake.

The Block Party morning began at 5:00am and ended with a refreshing sigh of relief even though there were a few hiccups. The end result was everything that I had planned. Neighbors from all over sat and talked and ate great food, shared receipts, introduced their kids and dogs…in addition to getting some demonstrations and great information on how to handle situations before, during and after. The beach clean up went very well; 40 people showed up to cone the beach with plastic gloves and bags to separate out the recyclable from the other waste that had settled on the shoreline…people even seemed to be having fun, especially the teenagers.

Our councilman showed up and gave a little pep talk to the group and as the sun set everyone voiced that they were glad that the event was planned for them and one neighbor even told me "that after 5 years of living in the area, now he feels like it is a real neighborhood."

My favorite part was when the kids were introduced to pollution in our waters…they were so amazed that people would intentionally pollute the water. They all had an opportunity to get on board the fire truck and later the kid’s crafts table brought out what could be some future Picassos.

I felt good about all of it because even if this event touched one person and allowed them to get prepared for an emergency, then we did our job.

Check out the photos (they're coming) I even played head chef for awhile.