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.