{"id":22593,"date":"2019-01-03T12:56:05","date_gmt":"2019-01-03T17:56:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=22593"},"modified":"2019-01-03T12:56:05","modified_gmt":"2019-01-03T17:56:05","slug":"essays-from-the-east-side-creating-community-at-the-end-of-your-driveway","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/essays-from-the-east-side-creating-community-at-the-end-of-your-driveway\/","title":{"rendered":"ESSAYS FROM THE EAST SIDE: Creating community at the end of your driveway"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Corrie Clark<\/strong><\/p>\n

My next-door neighbours are new.
\nThey leave at 6 a.m. in the dark that is winter and come home at 6 or 7 p.m. in the same dark, one 12-hour cycle ahead.
\nI rarely see them on the weekends. When it snows, some kind of miracle happens as their driveway is always clear, but I never hear that familiar sound of the shovel.
\nI live in an attached townhouse on both sides, so sights and sounds of neighbours is a regular occurrence. Sometimes I see other neighbors out talking to each other while shoveling; some are familiar with each other and some just a casual hello. And it reminds me that so much of whom we are as neighbours happens at the end of our driveways.
\nHow you keep your property is the first thing your nieghbours notice.
\nSure, some people are master gardeners, and keep immaculate lawns\u2026 but are they the best neighbours? What makes someone a good neighbour? It all depends on what your interpretation is.
\nIf a good neighbour coming and going in silence, keeping their place clean, who doesn\u2019t bother you is your definition\u2026 then that\u2019s easy in a commuter belt like Aurora.
\nAnd frankly, it\u2019s getting much easier with all the new builds, large houses and busy lives needed to pay for them.
\nBut, there\u2019s a lot you can do at the end of your driveway to contribute to being a good neighbour, and help create a warmer, more welcoming neighbourhood.
\nSaying hello is a good start. Picking up wind blown trash around your property or around the multi-unit mailboxes takes little time and adds to the harmony of your street. Keeping the manholes and drains clear of debris in the fall or not piling the snow too high on one side so your neighbour has no visibility are all common courtesies. These are simple things, but it\u2019s amazing how many times I have observed those coming and going and not even nodding hello or creating hazards for others.
\nI give gifts to the recycling guys and garbage guys at Christmas, and sometimes through the year at holidays. It isn\u2019t the easiest of jobs and they sure do appreciate it.
\nIt\u2019s usually food or beer on a hot day to enjoy after work. Once I brought hot coffee back for them from Tim Horton\u2019s and it completely changed their mood.
\nAs a single mother, I\u2019ve never been the best neighbour. Sometimes my lawn is far too long as I haven\u2019t gotten time to mow it yet, my kids are noisy as they come and go\u2026 and I have a dog \u2026although I always clean up after my dog\u2026 that is just being a good human.
\nBut I try to create a sense of community in my neighbourhood the best I can.
\nOne of the better things I do is to offer a coffee stop on Halloween to parents, where you can get a hot cup to go for your stroll around the neighbourhood. I did it faithfully for years outside my house in another province, and it became a reliable stop and brought more kids to my house.
\nSo, a few years ago, I started doing it here. It gives me a chance to meet and say hello to my neighbours and adds to the atmosphere of an already fun night.
\nThe same sort of feeling you get when you have a garage sale, it\u2019s a bit of community, right at the end of a driveway, without every leaving home.<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Corrie Clark My next-door neighbours are new. They leave at 6 a.m. in the dark that is winter and come home at 6 or 7 p.m. in the same dark, one 12-hour cycle ahead. I rarely see them on the weekends. When it snows, some kind of miracle happens as their driveway is always […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[29,28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22593","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-columns","category-opinion"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-5Sp","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-02 05:45:40","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22593","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22593"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22593\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22593"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22593"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22593"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}