2011-12 Grant: Reaching Out & Reaching In

The “Reaching In & Reaching Out” project focused on two main areas; broadening the association’s reach to constituents within the bounds of the association and connecting more with what is going on with the city and city events.

Reaching In:

New families move into Cherryhill neighborhood all the time. We created a Cherryhill Neighborhood Association welcome bag that can be given to each new family with information about the neighborhood and our association, the City of Sunnyvale, local merchants (including discounts and donated products), and has space for contributions from neighbors (baked goods, babysitter recommendations, etc.). The bag itself is a reusable cloth bag with our logo along with logos from participating local merchants. As a means to generate revenue, we sold advertising space on the bag to local merchants.

The Reaching In initiative also included celebrating our neighborhood’s cultural diversity at our neighborhood association events, encouraging neighbors to contribute ethnic dishes and baked goods at the annual Holiday Walkabout and National Night Out pot-luck-in-the-park get togethers, and incorporating cultural activities (games) & information at our block parties.

We created a Cherryhill Neighborhood Association Facebook page to encourage interaction among members comfortable using these tools to communicate.

Reaching Out:

We worked to connect our association more with what is going on with the City of Sunnyvale and promote city events. New family welcome bags contained information on city events, activities and resources – including local farmer’s markets, cultural events, arts & entertainment, city council events, neighborhood association events, etc.