Back to School Challenge and more!
- Aug 26, 2025
- 5 min read
Dear Friends,
This is a long one folks, bear with me!
Block Party USA Announces 2025 Back-to-School Challenge!
Now…until September 28, 2025 (National Good Neighbor Day!)
Join the nationwide 2025 Block Party USA Back-to-School Challenge to strengthen neighborhoods and neighborly connections, create opportunities for face-to-face conversation, decrease loneliness, and encourage children’s neighborhood free play!
Challenge Residents of Which State Will Hold the Most Block Parties?
What 2025 Block Party USA Back-to-School Challenge
How Organize a Block Party
Who You and Your Neighbors
Where In Your Building, Block, or Road
Why To Build a Life Worth Living**
When Now...until September 28, 2025 (National Good Neighbor Day)
** full of connection, support, relationships, well-being, and play
Whether you’re new to your neighborhood or have lived there for decades, the back-to-school season is the perfect time for a block party. Block Party USA takes the awkwardness out of reaching out to neighbors and gives you the guidance and tools to make organizing easy – and free.
Our relationships and social connection are the basis for our family’s, our community’s, and our nation’s well-being and prosperity. Together, let's make connection with your neighbors a priority and take action.
Gather your neighbors, fill the coolers, dust off the lawn chairs – and keep it simple and “old fashioned.” More at Block Party USA. You’ll be grateful you did.
Block parties have many benefits.
Block parties encourage free play for children. Get them out of the house and off tech and reverse the negative impact of “play-deficit disorder.” An abundance of free play can make children happier, better problem-solvers, and more energized to pursue learning and develop deep interests. Free neighborhood play improves mental health.
The United States is lonely. Block parties offer social connectedness. To address our nation’s epidemic of loneliness and isolation, the former U.S. Surgeon General, Vivek H. Murthy, released The Healing Effects of Social Connection and Community. Be a part of the solution, combat loneliness by rounding up your neighbors for a few hours at the end of a driveway or in adjoining yards!
After block parties, you may see an uptick in teenagers being hired – a win-win! Babysitting, pet sitting, watering plants, mowing lawns, raking leaves, shoveling snow. Part-time paid work helps teenagers build agency and confidence.
When we get together face-to-face, we realize that we have more in common than we are different. Neighbors may vote differently and disagree on many issues, but you can still laugh together, offer a helping hand, and share grilling tips! We all have more to offer each other, and the world, than our politics.
And countless benefits reported by block party alumni around the country! Make new friends and reconnect with long-time neighbors. Get advice and recommendations. Help in a pinch – borrow sugar, carpool, or run an errand. Meal trains for new parents or those in need. Group walks and game nights. Knowing who lives on your block makes your neighborhood safer. Celebrate holidays and milestones. Share street-specific info – construction updates, pet locator, and power outages. Intergenerational learning for young and old, and everyone in-between! In an emergency or time of need, someone is nearby to help. A connected neighborhood is more desirable for new buyers. Block parties help neighbors feel grounded, supported, a sense of belonging, and joy.
Does organizing a block party seem too daunting? Here are free resources to jumpstart your planning!
To help you organize a block party in your neighborhood, Block Party USA provides free resources:
Download the free Block Party USA Guide. The guide makes it easy to plan a fun and unpretentious event – from inviting neighbors by dropping off flyers to each home, to encouraging neighbors to bring a favorite dish from their family table.
Fillable Invitation and Contact Form. Include the details of your block party then drop it off at neighbors’ doors! At the block party, encourage neighbors to provide their info on the contact form so it’s handy for all sorts of neighborly needs – last-minute babysitter, car battery needs to be jumped, extra eggplants available from a garden!
Free 30-minute Block Party USA Zooms with me. The next one is August 28. Join me to learn – with others from all over the country – why it’s important, how to make it easy, and find answers to your questions.
Keep it simple! No expensive venue. No decorations or favors. No elaborate menu. Nothing staged for social media consumption. Block parties are about putting away phones, meeting and enjoying neighbors, and fostering more free play for children.
Will your state hold the most block parties?
Sign up to commit to the 2025 Block Party USA Back-to-School Challenge. We can’t wait to see your block party photos and videos, and hear your stories! Help your state get there.
Folks may think, ‘I’m too busy. Why should I bother?’ There are so many practical reasons why!
Increase your sense of belonging.
Desperate to get your kids off technology? Find neighborhood playmates for your children (yay-neighborhood free play!).
Meet and connect with your neighbors.
Get outside, make friends, and have fun.
Opportunity for face-to-face connection and conversation.
Meet some of the long-standing neighbors and learn about your community history.
Find support and decrease the stress of snow days, power outages, and emergency situations.
Create a neighborhood contact list.
Find resources, referrals, a babysitter, and a pet sitter.
Improve your, and your family’s, mental health.
Build a life worth living.
America, create some block party magic before September 28, 2025!
Join me for Connective Tissue’s Neighborhood Membership Workshop:
I am delighted to be included in this Connective Tissue "Neighborhood Membership Workshop," alongside Gerrel Jones and D.J. Trischler on Wednesday, August 27th at 4pm ET. Register here.
If you haven’t yet heard of Connective Tissue, led by Sam Pressler, it’s time!
Their work centers on the question: What will it take to seed and cultivate our generational project of civic and communal renewal?
Their newsletter focuses on the connections, communities, and commitments that bind us together.
And new just this summer, Connective Tissue membership is for community-builders, policymakers, neighbors, funders, and thinkers who aren’t satisfied with the status quo. I am proud to be a Founding Member.
From the Organizers:
Join Connective Tissue for an interactive workshop on cultivating neighborhood membership, featuring three of the most innovative neighborhood practitioners in the US:
Vanessa Elias, Founder of Block Party USA
Gerrel Jones, Founder of Renew Birmingham
D.J. Trischler, Publisher of the Claypole Commons
Wednesday, August 27, 2025
4:00 PM - 5:15 PM ET
During this session, you’ll have the opportunity to learn and ask questions about how each practitioner is working to strengthen their particular neighborhoods. You’ll also have the opportunity to join breakout groups to workshop your own strategies to facilitate neighborhood membership, and hear what other Connective Tissue members are working on in their neighborhoods.
You can register for the event via the button below. Please note that this event is exclusively for Connective Tissue members. If you’re not yet a dues-paying member, you can visit our Substack and join today: https://connectivetissue.substack.com
And a quick reminder for my last August Zoom/Office Hours: Thursday, August 28 at 12:00pm-12:30pm ET. Zoom link to join. Meeting ID: 820 0975 1912
