Improving your local community can help others as well as help you to meet new people. It’s a great chance to give something back to the adults, elderly residents and children in your community – as well as create a better living environment for you and your family. So if you’re looking to improve your local community, how can you get involved?
Form Committees
Committees, when steered by the right people, can work to greatly improve a community and generally form to tackle issues and look for ways to better a suburb’s surroundings and lifestyle. Committees might request special services or upgrades from the council, be involved in decisions related to school and education or get involved in environment initiatives. If there are no committees in your area and you can see there’s a need, you may want to start one.
Neighbourhood Watch
If you’re concerned about the safety in your neighbourhood, Neighbourhood Watch is a good program to get involved with. Your state, city or council area should have a Neighbourhood Watch initiative in place to help keep residents safe. You may want to attend general meetings, volunteer or even register your house as a ‘safety house’ for children in danger.
Volunteering
Volunteering is a wonderful way to improve your community. Volunteering could be at your local church, your kids’ school, a community centre or at an established charity in your area. The great thing about volunteering is that the work can involve almost anything – you might help with cleaning up areas, building new playgrounds, photocopying and distributing flyers or maybe putting together food hampers for a charity drive. Whatever it is, volunteering helps your community!
Helping Out at Holiday Time
Holiday times are often busy periods for a community. There are Christmas shows and Carols by Candlelights to organise, Easter parades and bake sales, end-of-year discos and dances and festivals and fairs, too. Helping out at one or more of these events is lots of fun and an excellent way to improve your community. Could you get involved in a stall, provide some entertainment, put together some Christmas cards or gift baskets for a raffle or help with coordinating rides?
Parks & Environmental Activities
If your suburb is perhaps lacking in cleanliness or needing an environmental pick-up, why not get involved or start an environmental initiative? The aim of these groups is to improve communities through environmental efforts. You might want to create an extra park, build more playgrounds, plant trees and bushes, clean up creeks and rivers or look for ways to make local homes and businesses more energy efficient and environmentally friendly. You can also get your community involved in national or global initiatives, like ‘Clean Up Australia Day’ or ‘Earth Day.’
Neighbourhood Gatherings
Do you feel that your neighbourhood needs a bit of social interaction or just a bit of fun? If your local community is a bit lacking on the social side, you can create events that will bring your community close together. Festivals and fairs are great for this, but you can also do things like organise a neighbourhood BBQ or a ‘street party’ or even a bowling day at the local green.
