The weather is great and everyone is outside, but you can’t interact like you used to do because of the pandemic and the government-recommended six-foot social distancing rule. But luckily, that rule doesn’t mean you have to be “socially distant” and you can still interact with people as long as you’re smart, aware, and give each other some space. Like interacting with an ex-lover or estranged family member. Enter the porch.
Porches are great, they’re public and private at the same time, inside and outside. IF eyes are the window to your soul, porches are the windows to our homes … well, windows are the windows, but you get my meaning.
Porches are a silent hero in our neighborhoods during the pandemic as they allow us to interact with passerby without putting ourselves at risk in the street. They operate as a soft edge, or membrane between individuals and the community in which they live and should be celebrated.
The folks over at The Musicant Group (Website) in St. Paul, Minnesota, have come up with a step-by-step process to transform porches and front yards into places that make your community feel more alive. People are converting their boring swaths of manicured grass into more dynamic places that can facilitate safe, neighborly interactions and we can’t think of a better time for that to happen than right now.
Click HERE for a Pinterest Board full of fun and amazing ideas to activate your front yards.
It also happens to be Global Porch Placemaking Week from May 30-June 5, and before you yell at us that that’s not even a thing, click HERE. It’s a self-organized event that encourages people to activate their front yards, porches, or even stoops, with a fun project and to add it to a special Porch Placemaking map. Get some inspiration via their Facebook page HERE.
