VRBS placemaking initiative - Part 2 (update)

[Dahveed]

It’s been almost a month since my first post on how I’m using the VRBS community building grant. And a lot has changed since then, so let’s update.

There were some false starts, including purchasing brand new paint, paint brushes, etc. and losing the receipt, only to realize that the planned balcony repaint job would be much bigger and costlier than expected. So put that aside for now. I can always donate those materials to our neighborhood’s tools library.

As a result, the “bonus” placemaking activity became the main attraction. I called it “Seeds for Neighbors” — any friend or neighbor could plant herb or veggie seeds in their own planter on the balcony we share for the weekly dinners and other events. So far, 4 people have done that and more are panning to. The goals were two-fold:

1. Give my friends and neighbors a sense of ownership in our shared space. It worked brilliantly. For Limor, it was the first thing she ever planted (she was so excited!). For Avi, it was the salvation he was looking for after feeling so guilty about not coming to recent events and helping with the community because of dealing with personal stuff that he stopped me on the street just to tell me how much he appreciated the dinners. Showing him how he can make an impact in 5 minutes turned his mood around and made him feel valuable. Anna, already experienced with planting, took pride in carefully spreading those seeds around — and they grew tall the very next day (I was shocked!).

2. Use this to pre-seed the neighborhood Fix It WhatsApp community and inspire others to offer up things to improve in the neighborhood (and to then do them). This is on track — just waiting for the High Holidays to pass to publish the group.

And I did say “were” because a 3rd idea came to mind — connect the URL world (as I heard @jxn refer to it) to the IRL one. So I created a dynamic NFT collection on Zora, with each plant as a dNFT — meaning that I can update the image of each plant as it grows. In fact, I just did that for 2 of the plants. This way, people around the world can support a local initiative and feel personally connected to each plant, watch it grow in front of their very eyes, so to speak. And if this succeeds — what else can we turn into dNFTs?

There is also an important financial aspect to these dNFTs, with the proceeds split 4 ways:

1. VRBS, to thank them for the grant
2. Cabin, because duh ))
3. Local neighborhood treasury to teach my community about self-governance and fund local projects
4. The person whose dNFT is bought, to onboard them to Web3 and DAOs

Now don’t get too excited — we’ve only sold 1 dNFT despite everyone being super excited when I explain the idea and even applying it to their own projects (painting as it’s being painted). So this is a fascinating marketing and messaging experiment for me personally. (I’m excited to tinker and learn!)

Besides the plants, I had a very productive brainstorming/planning session with my friend, Niko (who also planted something and works for a community center in my neighborhood). We set up a call with another local community organizer and detailed a 4-stage plan for getting all the other community organizations involved in the Fix It project (which, btw, my community decided to call Hi-dar! A play on Hadar, the neighborhood’s name).

The 4 steps:

1. Bring awareness of Hi-dar! to their members
2. Invite their members to submit neighborhood improvement ideas
3. Ask members to contribute skills and resources
4. Come up with improvements beneficial to each specific community organization and sponsor it with prize money and/or other resources

Niko has an idea of a “fun day” that just brings together all the organizers together to connect and align. I will support him there.

We also came up with the idea of brainstorming a list of “key people” types we need in our neighborhood improvement efforts (i.e. handy person, budgeting guru, project manager extraordinaire, etc.). Because once we have this mental list and somebody we run into turns out to be that potentially key person and eager to get involved, we can have the presence of mind to say “oh, actually….”

After the High Holidays (because all community centers are closed now, also with the war), I will visit all the community orgs with Niko and build up those contacts. Coordination will take months if not years, but it’s crucial for longevity.

There is also one new activity I jumped on randomly, after seeing someone selling a pair of movie theater chairs in the neighborhood FB group — of course I bought them. “The World’s Smallest Movie Theater” experience. The idea is to bring people closer by having them watch something meaningful together (dating, friendship, different social groups). It’s in my meditation/jam room for now, but planning to give it a permanent home inside of one of the community centers.

There you have it. Stay tuned for more updates!

And here’s the Colleciton page for the Seeds for Neighbors dNFTs:

Seeds for Neighbors