Neighborhood Pods How-To

As things get harder, we show up for our neighbors. As a neighborhood point person, you’d take on the responsibility of reaching out to your neighbors, checking in on what needs are arising on your block, coordinating a neighborhood group chat or phone tree, and staying in touch with the point people from other neighborhoods for resource pooling. We are trying to build a network of many neighborhood pods across Western Massachusetts.

How to start your pod

• Fill out this survey to volunteer as a neighborhood point person (NPP)
• safety advice: leave off your house number

• Naming your pod: Pick a fun name! One of our Easthampton pods is “PaLS”

Building your pod:

• Create a group chat for your neighborhood and as people text you, add them to the group. We recommend WhatsApp but whatever works for you all.
• Troubleshoot as needed – helping folks connect via Slack and get set up if they need it, answering questions, and asking neighbors to help bring more people in.
• Neighborhood Pods should be between 5 and 30 or so, if there are more than 30 neighbors interested, figure out how to split up into two pods.
• Stay in touch with folks. Use the conversation guide below to get a sense of what support needs may come up in your pod. Share wider-community resources.

Connecting to other pods:

• Join the WMA Slack at https://wmacommunitymutualaid.slack.com/ or email us directly at wmamutualaid@gmail.com to connect with other pods. You may want to ask for resources that your pod doesn’t have, ask for advice, share successes, or offer ideas to others.