Porches, stoops and front yards stand at the border of public and private space in cities and towns everywhere. The STooPS project seeks to use these important intersectional spaces as sites for community exchange and celebration.

A series of monthly, themed, potluck-style dinners to forge new connections.

A temporary, public installation of protest materials from movements that have been important in your community.

A day when everyone in your community wears an inviting nametag!

Offer a space for communication and exchange among neighbors, community members and passersby about, well, anything!

This compellingly simple idea has had wild success around the world in recent years. Little Free Libraries are just what they sound like. In cities across the country, boxes and little homes for books are being built and installed in public spaces. Anyone can leave or take a book! 

The Community Cookbook gathers recipes from residents across generations to create discussions about cultural heritage and connection.

The cultural action clinic is a public gathering in which all kinds of artists, cultural practitioners, city planners and other community members can gather to share and explore ideas for local projects. Held in a public space, it brings together people with multiple skill-sets to swap advice and get started (or move forward) plans and projects specific to the community.

A story circle is a small group of individuals sitting in a circle, sharing stories—usually from their own experience or imagination—focusing on a common theme.

A public space becomes a museum of the wide-ranging collections people and institutions in your community have amassed. Invite the collectors and hobbyists in your area to share what they love with each other.

Does your community have an abundance of artists who are willing to place their gifts at the service of the community? Consider inviting artists to become part of a registry that can be searched by local organizations and businesses looking for artistic collaborators. 

Bring together an array of groups in your community to share one cultural object/performance in exchange for another. 

A place-based performance project, PlaceMeant collects oral histories that pertain specific sites in the community, then works with a local theater to craft stories or monologues about these place to perform them live, in the places they seek to document.

A box, pile, or row of junked materials of various shapes and sizes are kept in a place to which the public have access so that community members can come and build their own temporary sculptures or peruse the work of other participants.

Public Show and Tell is a recontextualizing of the great elementary school activity, made public and relevant to people of all ages.

Bring together a wide array of members of your community to be ‘on-loan’ for dialogue and discussion.

People come together to break bread, paying on a sliding scale for their meal. Community-based art projects are proposed and voted upon. The project with the most votes receives the proceeds from the dinner. Build community and fund projects at the same time!

Bring together artists and makers in your community to trade their art with each other and with you!

Turn under-utilized or abandoned spaces and places in your community into temporary art installations, dance parties, art exhibits, markets or more!

Help the residents of your neighborhood share personal, familial, and communal stories about where they live with the larger community.

Let neighbors and community members share appliances, tools, art supplies and more!

Let your community know what you want from abandoned, underused, or vacant spaces.