Strong Citizens Challenge: Host a "pop-up" neighborhood happy hour

The first Strong Citizens Challenge, Walk to Get Your Groceries, has been going strong for the past couple weeks. We've collected lots of responses on the Strong Towns Forum, and we're excited to hear more over time. If you haven't given the first challenge a shot, we hope you'll consider it.

Today I'd like to introduce our next Strong Citizens Challenge:

Host a "Pop-Up" Happy Hour in your Neighborhood

This challenge was recommended by Karen Allen on the Strong Towns Forum. She tried this out on her street and shared her experience:

We got some wine, beer, fizzy water and lemonade, put out a few lawn chairs right on the sidewalk, and played music from 5 – 6:30 pm on an extremely warm Friday evening. Kind of like stoop-sitting.

I offered drinks to pedestrians who passed by and got a lot of smiles and “No, thank you, I'm off to my own happy hour.” Was surprised I couldn't give away free alcohol, but we did get seven neighbors at various times during the 90 minutes to stop by and chat and drink. Great for catching up on neighborhood gossip and I was able to introduce two neighbors who'd lived directly across the street from each other for 20 years (seriously!) and had never met.

This sounds like a great way to meet some of the people who live around you and potentially start conversations about how things are going in your town.

We'd love for you to try this out and share your experiences. The best way to share your experience is to post it on your blog, or on Facebook, so your friends and followers hear about it from you, then post a link to your story on the Challenge Thread on the Strong Towns Forum.

We'll collect people's experiences and occasionally share excerpts and observations here on the main blog.