Dear Neighbors:

A few quick action items and reminders for this holiday season:

• First off, I hope you can all contribute to the Neighbors for Neighbors Holiday Drive which funds the purchase of toys and clothes for our less fortunate neighbors. Be the first of 200 people to donate one unwrapped toy at Mike's Fitness on Saturday, December 20 and get a annual membership for life for just $299!

• Secondly, the newsletters at the end of December and ALL communication will take place through our social network. Join now if you want us to continue to stay in touch with you!

• Finally, make your dollar go farther this holiday season and shop locally here in JP, especially with these merchants supporting our holiday drive.

As you know, communication has been scarce lately and many of you may be wondering: what happened to Neighbors for Neighbors?

The short answer is to what happened to Neighbors for Neighbors is that I got super busy at my old job, started a new job (I now run Online operations for ServiceNation, which is a national campaign to inspire a new era of voluntary citizen service in America - please sign our Declaration of Service at www.servicenation.org). During this very busy time I've been exploring and developing options to roll out our social networking platform citywide.

I am responsible for the lack of communications, and for that I ask your forgiveness and understanding. Everyday I've felt torn between taking care of myself and contributing to you, the community I love, and wisely choose to take care of myself and it's been great - I really burned out there for a while but now, after some "me-time", I feel rejuvenated and ready to continue moving forward!

Now that I am settling into my job and feeling grounded again, I'm excited and honored to dive back in, and work with you to continue to create exponential opportunities for joy, service, and fun for community through our little neighbor supported funded Neighborhood group that can - go nfn!

For those of you new to Neighbors for Neighbors here are some of our groups that really took off, I'm hoping you'll get inspired and create new ones:

• JP Trees who planted over 200 trees,
• JP Book Women who have been meeting regularly for the past four years,
• Beecher Park that maintains a safe play space for local pups,
• JP (now Boston's) Women's Group with just short of 1400 members,
• JP Garbage Brigade that has been keeping our streets clean for the past year,
• JP Volunteers Group where you can find and post volunteer opportunities.
• the Nametag Project that got 19,000 people to wear nametags in 2007,
• the Neighbors for Neighbors Holiday Drive we raised over $4,000 to purchase toys and cloths for less fortunate neighbors, and,
• The bunches of other groups who have brought their neighbors together to do fun stuff with, and more importantly, for each other.

Unfortunately, the amount of time it takes to plan, promote, produce and staff events like Neighborhood Socials and Organizing Meetings is beyond what I, and the board, are able and willing to do on our own. We can no longer continue without your help!

Over the past two years, the number of people who have volunteered to help promote and staff events dwindled from the 50s to about 4 - and these 4 are the folks who have been helping from day 1 – and they are rightfully tired.

Are you interested or ready to help? If so we need the following help:

• Serve as online community advocates - join the Community Advocates group to learn more
• Help with organizing, promoting, and staffing the February Community Organizing Expo - join the Feb 09 Expo group to find out how to plug in
• For everyone else, please join - but more importantly contribute to the forums, join and suggest activities in the groups, and post local events of interest online at www.neighborsforneighbors.org

We built it the online community organizing network now its up to you to use it. We really hope you do as this is the only central organizing space in Jamaica Plain!

If you are interested and willing to help, here is what I am willing to do if you are:

• Let’s do two Community Organizing Expos per year, one at the end of February (as a remedy to cabin fever and to set us up for spring) and one in September since the JP World’s Fair is no longer happening) – again, this will only happen if you volunteer to help coordinate, promote, and produce. If you're interested, join the Feb 09 Expo group.
• While Neighborhood Socials are fun, it is too much work for us to do more than two events per year. I propose that each of us take responsibility for our own streets and do Street Socials. Street Socials are tons of fun, more intimate, and a lot less work. If you're interested, please join the Street Social Organizers group.

Thanks for your time and willingness to continue contributing to our community. If you have any other thoughts or feedback, I'd appreciate hearing from you.

Yours in Service,

Joseph and the NFN crew