The Community Development Potluck: A Real Community Meal

I count it as one of the great blessings in my life to have been a part of several communities that knew how to put on great potlucks.  Meals in these communities don’t need a sign up sheet.  These are the kind of meals where people not only do their best cooking, but know what you love to eat and want to go out of their way to make that dish for you. They are sacramental.

These sacred meals are to potlucks what collaborative, resident-driven, equity-focused planning and development is to community development. It begins with great aspirations and proceeds with trust and careful work culminating in healthy neighborhoods where the benefits are shared in ways that compound their positive effects.

I love to eat, so I’m happy to be invited to any potluck. As Habitat ventures deeper into community engagement and neighborhood development, we will also find ourselves dining at many different tables. But I am focused on helping to create real, comprehensive, collaborative development with communities that aspire to equity and health—that sacred feast described in the second stanza of George Herbert’s poem The Call:

Come, my Light, my Feast, my Strength:
Such a Light, as shows a feast:
Such a Feast, as mends in length:
Such a Strength, as makes his guest.

By Andy Barnett, Director of Community Development, Twin Cities Habitat for Humanity

This is the fourth and final in a series of blogs explaining community development through potluck metaphors.