In Northside, whether you have lived in the neighborhood for over 50 years or just a few months, you are a neighbor! Our Neighborhood Block Events celebrate and connect neighbors all year round. In Spring we launched our Porch Revival Tour. If you live in Northside, why not consider hosting an event on your porch? Let’s celebrate together!
Want to be a host?
In Northside/Pine Knolls, the front porch is more than just a physical place. It is a restorative space where residents share life history, welcome new neighbors, and celebrate home; a place where many long-time Northside residents have made and continue to make history. The Porch Revival Tour will celebrate and revive the longstanding role of the front porch in building community: a close, connected, and proud community that has grown through Jim Crow, urban renewal, and current housing crisis.
What does a Porch Revival Tour look like?
Over the past couple of years neighbors have hosted pop-up cookouts, hot cocoa on the porch, and lemonade on the porch events. The Porch Revival Tour will be a day-long event during which a house on every block of the neighborhood hosts a celebration of a similar scale at the same time! Imagine: diverse gatherings of Northside/Pine Knolls neighbors (families, long-term residents, young professionals, and students) interacting and moving from porch to porch, enjoying a different activity creatively crafted by each individual host.
Imagine walking down Lindsay St. where your neighbor is grilling wings on their porch while “Before I Let Go” by Frankie Beverly and Maze is playing and the electric slide is in full force. Make your way around the corner and learn from another neighbor how to make delicious banana pudding. Grab an ice cream sundae from a student neighbor on Cotton St. Take a break to swing in a hammock at your neighbor’s house on Whitaker St. before your last stop to learn history from your neighbor on Knolls St. who marched in local civil rights protests during the 1960’s. The Porch Revival Tour will be an event where neighbors get to be neighbors. A celebration of the social networks that are crucial to the sustainability of our community. Meet us in the middle, take a technology freeze, and celebrate the reviving space that is the front porch!
You are invited to open your porch to neighbors. Be part of the great tradition of hosting neighbors on your porch or in your front yard. If you’d like to be a Porch Revival host, call the Jackson Center (919-960-1670) or email George Barrett at george@jacksoncenter.info. You can even come by the Jackson Center to talk about it!