"The Casserole Brigade" Update

The "Casserole Brigade" or "Meal Train" (as Daveena calls it) is back in action again.

Xander Morgan Wells was welcomed joyously into the Wells family and the Daybreak community on Sunday, July 26. The family arrived home on Sunday, August 2 with several community hand-me-downs already in place, including the co-sleeper and other stuff from Max. An initial supply of soups in the freezer started off the food deliveries. From the sign up sheet, the Wells family has gotten a food deliver every day this week! And the plan had been for 2-3 per week. Okay so everyone wants to meet Xander. The food sign up already goes out more then a month.

Informal Connections - The "Casserole Brigade"

It seems that so many of our Daybreak stories revolve around food. And this is another one. When talking about community, I like to share stories to give a ‘flavor’ of what community can be like even before we live at the same address.

Our personal support for each other has grown and already is a complex web of connections. For me, a prime example of this support is what I sometimes call the ‘casserole brigade’. The bringing of food to those in need is nothing new in society. I’m just amazed how swiftly we have incorporated it into our community. We’ve seen an interesting trail of support.

When Ken was in a bike accident last year, several of us would informally drop off some food so that Scot had more time to devote to Ken and her art. Once Ken was feeling better, but still not allowed to be mobile, we dropped by periodically to chat and visit. When Martha had major surgery, folks not only went with her to doctor’s appointments, we also had a two-week schedule to bring a meal for her every day. When Max was born, the food schedule was spread out in hopes of relieving Tiffany and Alex a bit. We also came by informally to help get things done around their home. When Julie headed off to South America for a couple weeks, we sent food offerings home with Matt periodically so he and Peyton could have simple meals without having to take time to plan, shop, and cook. And Matt was sent off to relax a bit while others babysat.

As with many things, we laugh and say all this will be much easier to do when we live at the same address.

Sharing Suppers

Creating Community in a Forming Cohousing Group, Part 1

by Sterling Newberry

At various times, we at Daybreak Cohousing have felt the strain of so much work to do in developing our future home. We realized early on that we needed to be especially conscious of building in pure social time as a balance to all our work, and to ensure that our extended family relationships grow along with the infrastructure.

Early on we instituted pot lucks before our community business meetings, and agreed not to talk about business during them. This works much of the time, but not always. It is challenging to come up with viable social activities when so many of us live in different parts of Portland. We often remark how much easier (and less polluting) getting together informally will be after we move in. I’d like to talk about some ways we are addressing this now.

In this issue, I’ll talk about our Sharing Suppers. The sharing suppers are scheduled, twice monthly affairs. One or two people volunteer to host them, and the agreements about what to do are very open. We set the dates ahead of time, attempting to place them such that they are not too close to other community activities.

Hosting is a very open concept. You are just taking responsibility for organizing the Sharing Supper. Your involvement can be as light as offering your home and asking people to bring food potluck-style to doing major portions of the cooking (perhaps inviting people to come over and help cook). We’ve had food themes, a game night, and a sing along. And invitations to meet at a restaurant with the host making the reservations! You could organize a picnic if you like. The key thing is for people to share food and fun together, and not be doing the work.

We’ve had good success with these gatherings, whether 4 or 5 people attend or as many as 20. As with most other Daybreak activities, we also invite our prospective members to participate. After all, this is a good way for them to get to know us socially (and vice versa) and helps them to make a good decision about whether we are the right community for them. Next issue I’ll talk about Group Invitations.

By Sterling Newberry