Neighborhood coffees forge hit Skokie program

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Skokie Public Works Director Max Slankard (left) talks with Mayor George Van Dusen at a reception for the village's Know Your Neighbor program. The two officials were among guests who visited with neighbors in their homes. | Rob Dicker~Sun-Times Media

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Updated: October 31, 2011 3:08PM

The idea is so simple it makes you wonder why no one thought of it before.

Skokie’s Know Your Neighbor program encourages residents who live close to each other to get together in someone’s home, share coffee and cake and become better acquainted.

But this year’s third version, held earlier in the year, expanded the purpose without giving up the original mission: Now with each neighborhood get-together, a few village department leaders and elected officials showed up to talk and answer questions in an informal setting.

Village Trustee Edie Sue Sutker called her experience in visiting a half-dozen gatherings “by far my favorite thing I’ve ever done as a trustee.”

Sutker said she knows of no other communities that hold a similar event.

“People said it was just great,” Sutker said. “We were able to talk in such a friendly setting. People said this shows we are an open government and we want to hear what people say.”

Many of those people were invited to the new Skokie Police Station Monday so village leaders could personally thank them for being gracious hosts. The police station was chosen, said Director of Marketing Ann Tennes, because hosts expressed interest in seeing the new state-of-the-art facility.

The hosts became guests this night, visiting with some of the same village leaders they shared coffee and cake with several months ago and then taking a tour of the impressive complex.

After the first Know Your Neighbor event was held in 2008, funded in part by a grant the village received, the feedback was so positive that leaders believed they were onto something special.

“We had 25 or 30 of them that first year and it really went nicely,” said Mayor George Van Dusen. “When we held a similar (post-event) meeting, people said this was really a great idea.”

Like the village’s Festival of Cultures, Know Your Neighbor could become a blueprint for other communities, leaders say.

“Public officials are looking for more ways in which they can meet with their residents and get feedback,” Van Dusen said. “People are very busy but they will stop by a neighbor, have a cup of coffee and spend an hour or two there.”

The event was held over a longer period this year — eight weeks between May and June — and more people signed on as hosts than ever before. The event included 43 neighborhood coffees attended by more than 1,000 people throughout the village.Many neighbors had specific concerns they were able to ask village officials. Sutker, for example, heard about a street flooding problem. She explained about the design of the flood control system — pooling in the street is intentional, she told them — and sent some public works employees to try to clear sewer valves.

Some complained about the excessive speed on a neighborhood street. Although the village does not use speed bumps, Sutker said to them, she made sure the street was monitored so the village could record speed data.

“I was also able to tell people a little bit about me and what I do and how I got involved with being part of the community,” she said. “Some people don’t know what trustees do and I never really get that dialogue.”

The other benefit for elected officials, Sutker said, was being able to spend time with department leaders. The coffees were usually attended by a combination of an elected official and a department head, which offered its own educational value.

The mayor lost count of how many coffees he attended this year, but it was at least 10.

“What I found at the ones I attended was that people would come and we would sit for an hour or two hours and just casually talk,” said the mayor. “They would ask questions or say they liked this program or that but would have suggestions. Or they would have concerns.”

The informal setting made all the difference in the world. The village believes Know Your Neighbor promotes the true concept of community by bringing people together, by having a civic component and by better educating the citizenry.

Resident Brian O’Donnell, a plan commission member, hosted his first coffee this year.

“I thought it was great,” he said. “It helps foster communication not only between neighbors but also between the community and the village.”

Some of the neighbors attending the coffees had never met each other, which was true in O’Donell’s case.

“We had some people who had lived here for decades and others that are new to the neighborhood and we all got together in a friendly way for the first time because of this event,” he said.

The O’Donell’s coffee had about a dozen neighbors but some gatherings included only a few. The diversity in size and neighborhood made each coffee feel unique, attendees said.

Tennes credits her colleague, planning supervisor Steve Marciani, with coming up with the original Know Your Neighbor concept.

“We were brainstorming as a staff and developing many programs to assist and assimilate new immigrants in the community to acquaint them with village services and programs,” Tennes recalled. “Steve mentioned the idea of a program that would encourage neighbors to get to know one another. That was it.”

The Human Relations Commission was also instrumental in developing Know Your Neighbor. Many commissioners hosted coffees and hand-delivered informational kits to volunteer hosts from the first event to the current one.

At some point , Tennes said, she is likely to nominate Skokie for some awards for the program. “I believe it has that level of innovation,” she said.

But the program could be tweaked and fine-tuned for the future based on survey feedback and on the village’s own analysis. What’s certain though is it will be held regularly — a new village staple — as coffee cakes and informational packets will continue to be handed out to volunteer hosts .

Tennes received one of those coffee cakes this year, hosting a coffee in which 25 neighbors attended. She had never met one family of a different ethnicity who lives across the street, she said.

“We knocked on the door and handed them the invitation and they were the first ones at our door,” Tennes said. “It was a couple and their college daughter and they had picked a flower from their garden and gave it to us.”

That’s the heart of Know Your Neighbor, she said. “It was terrific. It’s just what this program is supposed to be all about.”