Do you live on a small street where everyone knows everyone else?
Well at The Haven in Stoke Mandeville, we kept ourselves to ourselves and hoped that the most positive thing was that we weren’t being a nuisance to people living nearby.
Reaching out to the neighbours
But Everyone Everywhere made us question this approach, so we thought the best place to start was getting to know people who live right on our doorstep. How could we do it?
All the men living at The Haven love creative crafts and for the festive season they decided to create cards and small gifts for the locals. They delivered these to residents of the street, which created a great opportunity to introduce ourselves.
Visiting the pub
But why stop there, where else to go after you have met the neighbours? Well of course, the local pub which Daniel is now enjoying two days a week, and has got to know the landlords Jon and Dave.
While at the pub Daniel was keen to get involved in some typical pub activities such as pool and darts but struggled with the pub equipment. With a quick bit of creative thinking, the team brought along some of their own games including a fabric darts board and magnetised darts for everyone to use.
Cakes at the local café
All three men from The Haven also started attending the local community Arc Café on a Thursday morning. The team were anxious that so many people in one space might be a bit much for one man, but everyone was extremely friendly, so nerves quickly dissipated.
However they discovered that Chris, who has a gluten free diet, could not eat any of the cake. In asking “how can we help” the team worked with the café to produce the week's cakes for everyone, all of them gluten free and delicious.
Developing relationships
These relationships are still developing, but we can already see our positive impact on our neighbourhood, and how building these relationships has given the men at The Haven more confidence.
