Rock the Block

I have heard from several affiliates about their success with the neighborhood or community blitz called "Rock the Block". It first needs to be said that Rock the Block doesn't mean doing all your work in one geographic block.

From the affiliates that I spoke to it refers to a week or weeks of "blitz" work on several homes with large number of volunteers in a designated geographic area (several blocks, neighborhood or community) that helps to revitalize a designated area.

Garage Fix-up

Just like there variety in size of community there is also variety in the types of activities. At Twin Cities Habitat we called our blitz "Garage-A-Palooza". We focused our work on rehabbing garages, landscaping and a block clean-up. We also provided food and had some kid activities for families on event day. It was a one day blitz but much work was done to make this one day a success.

Event Day Clean-up

We began our work months earlier by forming partnerships with several groups in the area. We also canvassed the block we designated for our work to get neighbor buy-in. We decided to focus on one city block where we already had a home we were building. We found another 6 homeowners who were willing to partner with us to either fix-up their garages, do landscaping, yard clean-up or putting up safety lighting in the alley. Much of the garage fix-up happened during the weeks leading up to the event day with regular crews. The lighting happened after the event day. Home Repair Aging in Place

Event Day Participants