[chambernews] A message received from Stefan...

[Karen Amundson (Chamber)]

This is something I hadn't heard of, but a really great idea & something 
to pursue if you wish to.
k.

It's kind of ironic.
More and more people are connecting, and re-connecting, with long lost 
friends, relatives, classmates, acquaintances and even people they don't 
really like through on-line social media sites like Facebook and Linked In.
Yet according to research from the Pew Institute, one-third of all 
Americans don't even know their neighbors' names.
But now, a new website hopes to end that -- and fight crime.
More than 100 Twin Cities neighborhoods in every corner of the metro are 
using Nextdoor.com. Some groups have as many as 1500 homes participating 
in their individually-designed Nextdoor websites.
In New Hope, in the Meadow Lake neighborhood, Jane Hagstrom, Janet Lane 
and Marcy Grant got better acquainted by joining Nextdoor. They all 
lived within blocks of each other near Meadow Lake for nearly 20 years. 
But of course, in 2012, that doesn't mean much.
Says Hagstrom, "Marcie and I have seen each other before but we never 
really made that connection until now that we're both a part of this group."
In a nutshell, Nextdoor.com is a free social media site that enables 
neighbors to communicate with each other to create stronger and safer 
neighborhoods.
 From garage sales to obituary announcements, its uses are limitless. 
Hagstrom says, "People post things like 'hey, make sure you're picking 
up after your dog. i'm seeing stuff going on'."
Most importantly they can use it to alert the neighborhood about 
potential crime. "Even if there's a salesman in the neighborhood that's 
suspicious," says Lane, "you can put an alert out to your neighbors to 
let them know."
Grant adds, "I think safety is an outcome of getting to know people."
And now, Nextdoor.com is partnering with National Night Out, the annual 
crime prevention event--usually held in August. But Friday night, Meadow 
Lake neighbors started early. They plan to have three Night Out events 
this summer. Says organizer Richard Buller, "We could do five times. We 
should do five times. I think we need to see eyeballs, we need to see 
people's faces, we need to have conversations--get back to what we've 
been like in the past to be a true neighborhood."
Mark Saxenmeyer can be reached at msaxenmeyer at kstp.com.
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: karen.vcf
Type: text/x-vcard
Size: 314 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://dala.kanabec.net/pipermail/chambernews/attachments/20120611/777e04e9/attachment.vcf>