hosting a neighbourhood party

Two years ago we hosted a street party as a way to connect with other families. The event was a pretty great success. It helps build a sense of community for the little ones, and as a parent, you get to know other families around you.

I had the best intentions to host it again last summer but life got in the way - I was feeling pretty burnt out, and we were in the middle of a kitchen reno - so the street party took a back seat. I decided to host it again this year - and it happened 2 weeks ago. Unfortunately this year, Mother Nature decided to throw us a curve ball and have torrential downpour at 4:01 in the afternoon (The BBQ was set to start at 4pm) which resulted in a flurry of texts to my phone of people asking if it was still going on, and phone calls to our house of neighbours wondering what to do. We said it was cancelled because it was actually thundering - but a few friends made their way over with food. I had thought the event was a bust but all of the sudden others started coming, and coming, and before I knew it our house was getting full and I started to freak. I hadn't prepared our inside of the house for a party (We had a new toilet in the box, in the middle of our dining room!) Thankfully the rain broke and we got everyone outdoors. The head count was lower than we originally planned for - but it was still an awesome event. Many of the tips are the same as the previous event but here are my thoughts this time around... More after the jump!



1. Keep the invite list specific 
We invited families on our street with kids. Although we know many lovely couples on the street with older kids to keep numbers manageable (so we thought) we kept it to those with little ones. Hand off the responsibility to some kids to invite people. It's a great way for them to feel a part of the event. Some girls n our street took charge and dropped off the invitations to houses on the street that they knew had families. Get people to e-mail you who is coming, the ages of the kids, and what food they will bring (see point #2)

2. Do a Pot luck
Get people to bring side dishes. We supplied the hot dogs - but everything else was brought by those attending. It helps with preparing the event, and the cost. It still works out to be a big investment on our end - as when we counted the number of people who were coming we were almost at 100 people. (Insert a minor freak out by us 2 days before the event) Ask people to put their address or family name on the bottom of their dishes. A lot of dishes end up being left at the event, so by getting people to write their name/address on the dish so you know where to return it.

I carried 24 balloons home - Oscar thought I was pretty rad. 

3. Balloons.
Get balloons. Kids looooved the balloons.


4. Games + Prizes and activity booths
Next, we had games for the kids like bean bag toss, car races (cut a water woggle in half and race cars down) Above is a picture of what I did at the cottage and I posted it to Instagram. I forgot to snap a picture at the party so the shot above gives you an idea. I got fun fair prizes from the dollar store, similar to that I bought for Oscar's BBQ. Again, it was a huge success. The games were pretty loosey goosey so I was pretty much handing the prizes without the games. If I had more help, I may have had a better system but really, I just was handing out prizes to the kids. We also had a manicure bar - I had six whacky colour nail polish and everyone, including some Dads got in on the fun. Ask some parents for help - some got in on the fun and helped me give the little ones manicures.

5. Reach out to local businesses
Our local Mastermind Toys donated a $50 gift certificate for one lucky family to win. When families arrived at the event, each family got one random number. I had a bowl full of numbers and half way through the event we drew a number. It was a nice treat for the families - I mean, $50 to spend at the coolest toy store in town? ;) Ps., I decided to do 1 number per family as it wouldn't be fair if one family had 4 kids, vs. another that had 1. A big thank you to Mastermind for supporting an event designed at bringing a neighbourhood together.

6. Have a rain plan 
I didn't. Big mistake. Probably best to have a backup plan - one neighbour said that one street party said that if it rained, the rain date was the following day. And if it rained the followng day, it was just cancelled. I'm not sure what we could have done, but it was really hard to update that many people about the on-and-off status of the party.

7. Hire help
I got my brother to come down to be Oscar's buddy for the party. This allowed me host the event, and know that Oscar was being watched at all times. This was a HUGE help.

In the end the party grew a lot from the previous one - had it not rained, and it had gone to plan we would have had over 100 people in our backyard. So on that note, I think it has grown to a point that we're handing off the event to be more of a street party vs. a family BBQ in our yard. The nice thing is,  I think people see the value in neighbourhood events, which was the intention all along. It will be fun to see how it changes next year with others organizing and more families involved. Anyhow, I hope my tips on what made ours a success, help you perhaps arrange one for your street.

xo Linds