Photo by Ronnie R.
How many times did you say “hello” to someone you passed on the sidewalk this morning? Did anyone say that five-letter word to you?
One D.C. resident thinks her neighborhood is lacking in this most neighborly convention and wants to change that through a campaign that encourages people to simply say “hi” to one another. From a post on the Bloomingdale neighborhood blog:
Spring has sprung – isn’t this a good time to say “hi” to your neighbor? Unfortunately, it seems, many of our neighbors have recently moved from places where saying “hello” on the street was not the custom. They look at you strangely, when you say “hi.” Or they avert their eyes. That makes me sad! One of the things we loved most about Ledroit Park and Bloomingdale when we moved here was that everyone said “hello”!
But all is not lost.
I am looking for a few volunteers who want to bring back the “neighbor” to our neighborhood. I am thinking of a small behavior change communications campaign. We’ll make flyers! We’ll walk the streets, smiling! We’ll have fun!
Maria Fyodorova, the nine-year resident of LeDroit Park behind the idea, said via email that the campaign didn’t come from one incident. “I have just seen the number of neighborly “hellos” slowly diminish over the last two years,” she said.
And I am a very “hello-ish” neighbor and am out and about a lot — walking my dogs, walking to yoga, walking to the store, walking with my daughter, walking to bus. (We don’t have a car!) … I also work on behavior change communication campaigns professionally — this issue seemed like a good candidate for such an approach. The premise is that MOST people want to feel like they are part of a community and would be willing to say “hi” if they knew that it was okay, accepted and even expected. It is really about maintaining our neighborhood culture, but we shouldn’t assume everyone is coming from a similar experience.
Fyodorova, who’s lived in D.C. since 1991, says she “really [believes] that saying “hi” is the first step toward building a relationship with your neighbors and then toward building a community.”
“My block is really tight,” she continued. “Many of us will sit on our stoops and chat, we borrow sugar from each other, we walk each others’ dogs, etc. I really feel like I can count on my neighbors — they’ve got my back. And it all started with a simple ‘hi.'”
Since the post was put up on Sunday, Fyodorova says she’s gotten about a dozen volunteers “and a few ‘way to go’ notes.” She plans to develop a set of materials, including flyers, “that any community can easily pick up and tailor for their own use.” When asked if any detractors have contacted her, she said they hadn’t: “Who could criticize saying ‘hi’?”
