In June we asked you for nominations in our Family Favorite Neighborhoods contest. We wanted to celebrate the communities where we live and the neighbors who enrich our and our children’s lives.
More than 50 people wrote in to tell us about the pace of life in their town — or on their block — and the passels of kids playing outside and the fantastically creative block parties and all the amenities close by. Whew! We wish we could have visited all of you and sat with you on your front stoops.
But one essay stood out: Twelve-year-old Samantha Schnirring of Crowfoot Court in Eden Prairie wrote about how the kids on her cul-de-sac had decided they needed a clubhouse. At first they thought they’d save up for a shed, but their parents nixed that idea. But these kids were not going to give up on their dream so easily. They found a tent, the kind that sleeps eight in two “rooms,” for $200. For six months, they saved their allowance and sold their old toys at garage sales and the tent now stands in the Schnirring back yard.
A dozen kids hang out in the tent, or, rather, they run in and out of it in between games of kickball and basketball and what they call “very strategic” freeze tag. Everybody kicks their Crocs off at the door — no shoes allowed! — and they all clean it out once a month with a vacuum cleaner they bought with their leftover garage sale money.
“This is the kind of neighborhood I grew up in,” says Stacy Long, whose kids Henry, 6, and Greta, 3, keep up with the bigger kids in their games. “There are some times I’d like more space in our house, but it’s just so hard to think of ever leaving. I have life-long friends from my neighborhood.”
Samantha’s mom, Denise Schnirring, says her daughter wants to be a writer and chose to write her entry one day as her summer “homework.” She says the six families also host some sort of neighborhood party nearly every month — whether its for Halloween or Easter — and pass around a “neighborhood plate.” Each house fills it with treats and passes it to the next and it could keep making the rounds indefinitely.
Pretty soon, Samantha says, it will be time to take down the tent for the winter, but the clubhouse will just move into someone’s basement. “We have all grown up together in this great neighborhood,” her essay concludes. “I hope you see why my neighborhood is so great!”
Congratulations, Samantha — and all the kids of Crowfoot Court!
