By Zan
Our family has lived on this road for around 15 years. There are 11 houses and noone has ever thought to get the 11 families together to do anything! So I took it into my own hands to get my immediate community together, popped round to all of their houses, and then decided together that we would have a Jubilee Street Party to celebrate community, neighbours and the Queen!
Here’s what happened:
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| As Pop-Up Adventure Play, I helped to apply for road closure, and made the signs to ensure everyone was safe. |
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| Everyone had a look around at home and brought out tables and chairs that we could spare. |
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| The children started early, and asked me to get into a huge box with them. |
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| Everyone brought out some food and then tucked right in! |
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| My street is super multi-cultural, so we all brought delicious things that we were familiar with to share – vegetarian style! |
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| Here is a flag-waving box man! |
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| The kids loved the Pop-Up Adventure Playground! |
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| Look at this amazing house – I only helped to cut the door and the window under their complete direction! |
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| “This is food” |
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| Noodulz, blooberiz, sdorberees, kookumberz, tmartoaterz, plumerz, orinj, apul, peech – “I’ve know another one, potatoes!!” |
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| Children played freely on everyone’s front gardens |
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| And them someone arrived with lots of tea – complete with teapot and mugs! How British! |
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| The adults had some time to hang out. |
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| The children also had plenty of time to make new friends. |
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| All of a sudden, spontaneous dancing – adults at play! |
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| Children, young and old played together all day. |
The Jubilee party was an amazing day! The adults had fun, the children had play, and it was just an amazing experience overall. Many of the parents came to me and expressed how intrigued and impressed with the idea of playing with boxes, and were surprised at how their children understood the concept so well and came out of their shells. Although it seemed that the party was for the adults, the children were the ones who owned the space. It was a wonderful event, and everyone went home smiling from a day of sun, food and play in their own way.
It’s the first time my street has ever got together to do anything as a community, and it’s going to be the first of many. I’m so happy to be able to instigate this get together, and I hope that all my neighbours will be talking about this for years to come.
To hear more about Suzanna’s Jubilee Day and how she organised it, visit her blog or contact her via email.