Reclaiming Our Friendly Community session generates new ideas for local civility-building


A successful Reclaim Our Friendly Community event co-hosted by the Civility Project and United as Neighbors took place on January 11 2025, generating important new ideas for how to help the local Newberg/Dundee community grwo stronger and more constructive relationships across political divides. 

Of the 35 who attended, fewer than 1/4 were people who have been active volunteers in organizing and hosting events for the Civility Project or United as Neighbors.

We hoped to get a few good ideas from the group for now ways to promote connection and cooperation across political and other divisions in the community. The conversation was great, and the results very promising.

After we described initiatives already underway — Civility Pledge, Community Conversations, co-hosting candidate forums, candidate get togethers (to get to know each other better), and a booth at the last three Newberg Old Fashioned Festivals — we invited attenders to brainstorm more ideas. This produced of a list of 18 potential projects.

The group then honed that list down to nine:

These ideas will be the focus of a follow-up planning meeting on Thursday evening, January 23, at 6:30 PM at the Newberg Drop-in Center at 504 E. First Street.