What's something positive that's happening in your neighborhood or community?

I never tell my location, so I’m skipping that.
I hadn’t heard of the bear hunts. I’m gonna check that out.
I had thought of filling my windows with balloons. Because of an activity for my daughter sometime past I have thousands of leftover balloons. I wat it to look like my house is full of them from outside.

A local small business is staying relevant and helping the community by devoting 100% of sales to a meals on wheels program which is struggling to meet needs until strains pass.
Family restaurants are offering curbside pick up.
So far the crisis hasn’t come to my area much yet.

Many things. Off the top of my head we have a local chef offering pay what you can soup for takeout or curbside delivery. A local pizza place is offering free small pizzas for lunch each day for school age children. A music venue has a live stream of local musicians performing with links to their PayPal or Venmo for tips.

Madison, Wisconsin

https://wkow.com/2020/03/21/madison-developers-build-virtual-tip-jar-for-food-service-workers/?utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook_WKOW_27

I love the stuffed animal idea. We have no children where I live, but I am going to do it anyway. People walk by all the time, even more now than usual, because they can’t do the forms of exercise they typically do indoors.

A few people have said if the government gives a check to all working people they want to donate theirs to people who are going through an especially difficult time financially, because of everything shutting down. The majority of the people where I live don’t work, but many who do work mostly for health insurance and not the income.

More restaurants are providing take-out and delivery service instead of shutting down.

People are getting together on their driveways. Bringing their own chairs to a friend’s house and sitting 10 feet apart. Usually just 2 or 4 people total.

People feel empowered to speak up when they are uncomfortable with someone else’s bad behavior. The majority of my community is in a very high risk group, some people saw fit to not take this seriously, posting group shots of people at a pool party, or people standing too close at supermarkets, there are many examples, people are telling others to stop what they are doing, and it’s a good thing. Makes me think of the Me Too movement and helping someone who is being bullied in from of you.

I heard some people are starting to sew masks for people. I hope they are using the correct material that really helps keep out COVID19. The whole thought of it is nice though.

Our grocery store, Publix, has been on their facebook page daily responding to questions, suggestions, and complaints. I think there must be someone hired to do just that.

Neighbors and friends constantly checking on each other via texting and facebook.

We also are all sharing information and coming up with creative ideas to help or bring some normalcy to the situation. I am trying to organize the lecture I usually attend on Mondays to be done online. I hope it is successful. It’s a lot like fluther, seeing friends and acquaintances and learning about a topic. It’s usually 20–40 minutes of lecture, and then a Q&A afterwards.

Where I am, (southern CT) people are getting creative with sidewalk chalk, and putting decorative lights back out. On social media, people on the local pages are posting reports of which stores have which supplies.

And on Saturday, which was my birthday, three jellies that I have known for a long time here, joined me for a virtual birthday dinner, which was enormously cheering in these odd, rough times. :-)

Tacoma, WA
A lot more people are out walking in neighborhoods and parks.

More people doing yard work and gardening.

My wife started making sourdough bread and beagles.

@gondwanalon She’s making “beagles”??

I baked chocolate chip cookies and delivered them in bags on their porches to some friends and neighbors.

A group of people in my city is partnering with restaurants in my area to give out free dinners to those who come at three churches in the city.

My Unitarian congregation is offering services, committee meetings and virtual coffee hours via Zoom.

Some of our favorite local musicians are streaming live performances from their homes on Facebook and we can watch in a virtual “group.”

We’ve encouraged nearby elderly residents to place a green card/envelope in their window so It’s clear to see & if that’s replaced by a red one they require help in some way.

When we went to pick up the free meals for the boys, we passed a yard filled with delightful inflatable characters from children’s shows.

Sobeys grocery store now delivers for $7 fee.

The red and green colored cards are a good idea that I’ll pass on to my neighborhood e-list.

Actually, I’m adding the suggestion that they use something that resembles a flag, like a shirt or a towel.

It takes beagles to make beagles.

I’m definitely going to share the flag idea. That is wonderful.
What if someone can get to the window?
Maybe it should be signs with the days of the week.

This is how we will get through this, a simple but effective idea shared on a lil ol’ q&a site.
If that can help only a handful of those most in need, then my work here is done.
Oh & always remember, kindness to strangers goes a long, long way :)
@Patty_Melt Any adaptation of the idea would be welcomed I’m sure.

I found a pair of Christmas-themed hand towels, bright red and bright green. I put the green one in the window. Thanks, @ucme.

Until now, I never thought about the simple, common, and (?)nearly universal message of red and green as we understand them. The power of symbolism and association usually sounds like something more esoteric and philosophical than some application of “stop” and “go.” I guess it goes along with the white flag of surrender as a well-understood sign.

I hope we’re still a long way from a white flag.

@Jeruba Fantastic & you’re more than welcome :)
Put away your white flag, life will return to normal…whatever that is, sooner rather than later.

The street sweeper made its customary Wednesday pass, but there wasn’t the usual brace of meter maids ticketing cars parked curbside. I was astonished as I parked the truck on the sidewalk waiting for the machine to pass and noticed that only about half of my usual neighbors had done likewise. I wonder if the policy will persist and for how long.

In my neighborhood, we are having community potlucks and bringing our leftovers from our meals to the local Middle School to share with our neighbors.

Since the local gyms and restaurants are closed, we all meet at the school gym. Its a little crowded, but living in close quarters, having to share. brings about community spirit.

If we know of anyone in our community is sick, we send small groups to go visit and let the community know how they’re doing when we all meet in the school gym

@Yellowdog Do you know you’re supposed to be staying away from people?

Potlucks? Are you all touching the same serving spoons?

@janbb That’s pretty hard to do when we have living room concerts and large crowds meet in each others’ homes.

@Yellowdog Well, see up here where we’re pretty serious about not spreading the virus we have changed our ways of being together and are meeting online in virtual communities.

You can spread computer viruses online, y’know.

None of my friends are having other people into their houses. They might visit outside, but not in the house.

What stupid behavior!
Or stupid joke.
Such activities are illegal now in most states.

I remember reading TN was one of states cited as having the loosest rules. I read it a week ago, things could be changing. My husband drove home from Nashville last Thursday. Since then things have become stricter there, but I don’t know if it’s state wide. I think Nashville metro area will triple in COVID19 cases in a couple of days. It’s a fairly young person city. They might get lucky with not having a lot of extreme cases.

@Yellowdog isn’t in Nashville, I kind of switched cities there, but same state.

I am temporarily in Nashville helping with Samaritan’s Purse with the Tornado recovery efforts. Yes, the above response was a joke.

We are taking precautions. Some of us will be going to Italy to help there. I don’t think I’m ready for that. I have people in Memphis who are disabled whom I need to make a priority, as they are vulnerable.

I guess if there is anything happening positive in THIS community, it is all the response to the recent tornados even amid COVID 19.