Opportunities to Get Involved in Your Neighborhood!
National Night Out Ice Cream Social
The National Night Out Ice Cream Social is our biggest events of the year and is held the first Tuesday of August to help promote safety in our neighborhoods. Volunteers are needed for a number of tasks including getting donation, communications, coordinating entertainment, organizing kids’ games, making posters, coordinating with the Park & Rec, and planning the ice cream. You can help with just one task or multiple tasks depending on your time availability.
Time Commitment - Donation Solicitations: 3 hours in February and 5-7 hours in July. Food Planning: 4 hours in July. Organizing Activities/Games: 7-10 hours in July.
Even more volunteers are needed the night of the event to help set up, run the games, serve the ice cream, make ice cream runs, direct the activities, and clean up. Each year we try to expand the fun activities and the more volunteers we have that night the better the event is!
Time Commitment - 4 hours the night of the event.
Garage Sale
Calling all Garage Sale Hunters! Every Spring the Northwest Neighbors Neighborhood Garage attracts people from all over Rochester and surrounding areas into the neighborhood for bargains. Rose and Greg Madder chair the committee and they always welcome help to advertise and organize the event.
Time Commitment- 1-3 hours a week the first three weeks in May and to be available one of the days of the garage sale.
Halloween Festival
Do you have a little bit of kid in you? Do you love Halloween? Our annual Halloween Festival for all of our neighborhood kids (and kids at heart) is held in late October and includes games, snacks, and a costume parade. Volunteers are needed to help plan the games, snacks, and location. We also need help at the festival to decorate, run the kids games, hand out prizes, serve snacks, and clean up.
Time Commitment - Planning: 1-3 hours per week from mid September to early October. Festival Help: 2 hours for the event.
Other Social Events
We are taking ideas for new social events, so if you have an idea let us know. Also be prepared to help plan and organize it!
Traffic and Development Committee
Do you like to know what the city is planning for our area? Are you concerned with traffic on our streets? This committee works closely with city officials on the traffic and construction development in the area. They also attend City Council meetings and Planning & Zoning meetings when necessary. If a traffic problem arises, the committee will work with that group of home owners to follow Rochester’s process for resolving the issue.
Time Commitment- Varies depending on current issues. Usually 2-4 hours per month.
Neighborhood Cleanup
The association would like to get enough volunteers for two neighborhood clean up days each year. One day in the Spring and one in the Fall, volunteers would walk the area to pick up trash.
Time Commitment - 4 hours twice in the year.
Communications
One of our greatest challenges is to get the word out to our neighbors about issues and events.
Web Site: Help is needed to maintain and grow the web site as this is a great media for communications. The information on it needs to be kept up to date with the latest happenings, upcoming events, and information on better living.
Time Commitment - 2-4 hours per month.
Signs: Signs set out around the neighborhood communicate upcoming meetings and social events. The association has 30 signs that need to be put out for each quarterly meeting which is the last Thursday in January, April, July, and October. Help is also needed to create and distribute signs for other events such as the Garage Sale, National Night Out and the Halloween Festival.
Time Commitment – 2 hours for each meeting and 3 hour for each social event.
Newsletter: To reach all neighbors we mail a newsletter advertising our events and meetings for the coming year. We are looking to expand the frequency and content of the newsletter if possible.
Time Commitment - 2-4 hours the first two weeks of January. If the newsletter grows then more time may be needed to send out a newsletter each quarter.
If you want to get involved in any of these opportunities or have further questions please contact Bonnie Lodermeier at (507)280-0562 or rochesternwneighbors@yahoo.com