The Simpson Stump - January 2020

Greetings all, we hope the first few days of 2020 find you having a good new year!

To start off, we want to thank everyone who participated in the holiday events this year! Whether it was helping to assemble the luminarias, light them come night time (which is quite the undertaking), stopping by the hot chocolate social, generously donating to provide a prize to go with the signs in our holiday home decorating contest, decorating your houses with holiday spirit (whether you knew you were competing or not), or just being neighborly during the last few cool and wet weeks.

The next meeting for the Simpson Neighborhood is coming up soon, January 21st at 6:30 and being held at First Indian Baptist Church (2205 W. Georgia Ave). In addition to the usual updates, there are two larger topics on the agenda. First, the City of Phoenix will have staff from Public Works to present on recycling programs and options moving forward. If you’d like to learn more about the proposed chances, or have questions for the city staff who handle trash and recycling responsibilities, please consider attending.

Secondly, now that we’re into the new year, it’s time to start looking at activities and planning for Simpson in 2020! Several of our neighborhood events have been growing the past few years, and are pushing their maximum size without some additional assistance both organizing before hand and the day of the events. Two previous events are our GAIN Event, and the Luminarias in December, as well as new events moving forward. Most of those activities are still a long way out, but we really would like to get feedback while they’re fresh in everyone’s mind! I’ll cover the general changes below (more details will be shared at the meeting, as well as taking any suggestions or improvements you may have in mind):

GAIN Event - Street Fair: In 2019 we changed the event up a bit by closing down a street, and changing the event from a backyard picnic and making it more of a street fair. We had the largest attendance we’ve had in several years, and look to build on that success this year! It’s early, but we’d like to start similarly in 2020 and grow a bit more (add more local vendors and crafts people, and some additional activities for kids such as face painting or balloon animals). Depending on the feedback and assistance we get, we may combine our GAIN event with another neighborhood and work on including a movie in the park after dark as part of the festivities. If you have preferences (keep it growing, keep it local, or something else) we’d love your input either at the meeting, or by email.

Luminarias - Hot Chocolate Social - With the exception of a few dozen houses along I-17, we managed to cover the northern half of Simpson with Luminarias this past year. While the event was everything we hoped it would be, it is becoming an event too large for two people to organize. And we really want to continue expanding to include all of Simpson, as we used to years ago. In addition to covering the entire neighborhood, we also want to extend the event to two nights rather than just a single night like previous years. To make that happen, there will need to be a few changes. First, for two nights to be feasible we’ll need to change to LED candles. We’ve considered this each year, but haven’t been able to make it happen yet. A couple of factors make 2020 the year we will finally switch over (like several other neighborhoods in Phoenix already have). We’d also like to develop a network of people who will help us assemble and set out the luminarias, with each person being a ‘champion’ for their block. We’d provide the supplies, and then each champion would put together around 400 luminarias and line their street, and then to help pick them back up. To add a little perspective, this year we assembled nearly 8,000 bags, sand, and candles and placed them around half of the neighborhood. We’ll need between 12,000 and 14,000 to cover all of Simpson, to highlight just how much help we need. And of course, both LED candles as well as increasing the count means we’ll need help fundraising (or generous donations of course, but having someone to organize that effort would help a lot). As above, we’ll discuss a bit more detail at the meeting, so bring or email any ideas you might have!

Other Events and Assistance Needs: And of course, the two major events aren’t the only help we could use. We’d like to look at starting new events in Simpson and our surrounding neighborhoods and could use active neighbors to help plan those. In particular, the next event we’re looking at is an annual food truck event, likely near Christown Mall. We’ve had some initial interest from people who would like to attend, and talked with a group that can help us make this happen. If you’d like to help make sure this is something available to our corner of Phoenix (rather than, say, in Mesa) please let us know!

We can also use assistance in delivering the very newsletter you’re reading now. We have a long standing and ever changing network of neighbors who deliver these flyers. There are always gaps that develop, or routes that get larger and more difficult to cover in a single morning over time. Many hands make light work, so if you’d like to work towards a new year’s resolution to walk more and help your neighbors at the same time, we have just the thing for you!