Forward Progress
Starting a Firewise Neighborhood can seem like a daunting task to many. Often, we feel like we don’t know our neighbors or intimidated by the task of organizing. Paul Barrie, the coordinator for the newest MOFN neighborhood, Central Ivy Drive, shared his experience in getting 525 homes recognized as Firewise.
How did you get started?
I’ve known about Firewise for a few years. My brother-in-law started a group in his Montclair neighborhood, so I heard about the basic concept of the program from him as well as his experience setting up and managing a group. Then, a friend in my neighborhood, John Pomidor, asked me if I was interested in starting a group here. Ivy Drive is a large neighborhood, over 500 homes, but has pretty well-defined boundaries and a sense of identity. We started by focusing on just part of the area to start, but were encouraged to “go big” by MOFD leader Marc Evans to avoid incremental additions later. It’s been an interesting challenge but I think that was the right choice.
How did you coordinate that many participants?
I think the key was getting a small core team of neighbors together with different skills to help manage our tasks and be a sounding board for what we wanted to accomplish. My background is in corporate communications and marketing, and I have some managing experience, so I focused on communicating our goals and finding collaborators to manage areas that they were better at than me. One of our early members has experience with Google Docs, so she created our online signup tool with a QR code for easy sharing. This lets homeowners enter their information directly so we don’t have to deal with data entry. John is a retired city attorney, so he is leading our application process. One of our participants is a former corporate event planner, and she is organizing our first in-person block party event on May 9th. Another neighbor is our primary liaison for block captains. We have about eight people who have been part of our leadership group, and that has been our key to success.
What obstacles did you encounter and how did you overcome them?
Unlike neighborhoods that are in a homeowners association, we didn’t have any contact information for residents. So communication and building a contact list was our biggest challenge. We have a great walking neighborhood, so I created announcements that we posted on dozens of telephone poles. I also made a door hanger that we delivered to over 500 homes. Both had the QR code and invited our neighbors to join us.
What has the response been among the neighbors?
The most consistent feedback we get is thanking us for taking action on an issue that everyone knows is important. In terms of numbers, we’ve had over 120 homes signed up to participate in the last three months.
Lessons learned and tips for someone wanting to create their own FW neighborhood?
I think the hidden benefit of participating has been getting to know my neighbors in a far more satisfying way than I’ve ever experienced in over 20 years living here. There’s a really positive community feeling doing this, and I think that’s a big motivation for all of us working on this project.