Building Stronger Neighborhoods — a subcommittee of the Community Assembly dedicated to raising awareness about and increasing participating in neighborhood councils — will be holding its first meeting of the new year on Monday, January 27 from 5-6pm at Fire Station 4 (1515 W Riverside Ave). Please note that the meeting has been moved to a new time, as the 11:30am lunchtime meetings had limited people’s ability to attend.

The Building Stronger Neighborhoods committee had a productive 2013 and is looking to build on that foundation with a number of goals for 2014. These include alerting neighborhoods to events in the Hot Topic Training series (which has included workshops on nonprofit status, social media and community outreach) and working more closely with area schools to maintain updated neighborhood websites.

You don’t necessarily have to be involved with your neighborhood council to take part in BSN, but it does help for long-term involvement, since one of the committee’s aims is to develop a closer connection between Spokane residents and their respective neighborhood councils. But in the end all it takes to participate is a bit of neighborhood pride.

For more information on Building Stronger Neighborhoods, get in touch with Jackie Caro at (509) 625-6733 or jcaro@spokanecity.org.