HOW WE WORK
MISSION STATEMENTTo create a free, fun, and informative community event that nurtures relationship-building among all residents of Old East Village and celebrates the ongoing cultural production in the neighbourhood. |
GOALS
Community building means strengthening the relationships among members of a neighbourhood, as well as increasing people's understanding about the place in which they live. The central vision of the Block Party is to stimulate the building of relationships in and around Old East Village. We believe that by creating strong relationships and sharing visions about how we can contribute to our neighbourhood, residents and the neighbhourhood overall, will benefit. We locally source most of our food and materials from within the generous neighbourhood businesses, contributing to the local economy.
We want to keep the Block Party a free and accessible event for all residents of the neighbourhood. The previous two years we have been able to achieve this goal through the generous donations of local business, residents, and community grants.
We believe that a key to success at these events is that people of all ages can have fun, especially children. We try to make the booths as interactive as possible with many offering activities such as button making or face painting. We also focus on live music and good food to contribute to a good time. Mixing these components together we hope to create an atmosphere where people can be relaxed and open to meeting new people.
We not only want to offer the people of Old East a fun event, we want everyone to have the chance to engage in important community dialogues and learn about ways that they can get involved around the neighbourhood. We will be doing a speakers series called “Porch Talks” to encourage community dialogue about neighbourhood-relevant issues (i.e. community parenting, co-ops and collectives, why we should buy local, etc.) The booths at the event are also selected based on how they can connect neighbours to each other. |