Serenading Neighbors in a Tacoma Neighborhood

At the Hopeful Neighborhood Project we believe that every single person in your neighborhood is a gift with gifts to share. Sometimes it takes a difficult season to see just how true that is. That was the case in a Tacoma, Washington, neighborhood where neighbor Jim Meck decided to respond to the current coronavirus pandemic by unveiling one of his gifts to his neighbors.

Jim is a musician and entertainer who has been performing for 35 years. With the current restrictions on large public gatherings Jim decided to try something he had never done before: play his music right from his front porch! As Jim put it, "As a musician, I thought, well why not use music and see if we can brighten up the neighborhood?"

As a result, Jim’s neighbors have live music to enjoy right in their own neighborhood. Jim plays covers of songs like Billy Joel's Piano Man and The Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. These aren’t organized concerts Jim is offering (social distancing wouldn’t allow for that) but instead they are impromptu moments of grace and levity and fun. Because Jim decided to share his gift in the neighborhood, there are surprise moments of music and joy for his neighbors.

A neighbor sharing one of his gifts with his neighborhood – it may not seem like much, but this is the stuff of hope. Jim is helping his neighborhood in Tacoma become a more hopeful place to live.

It makes me wonder: what gifts do I have that I could share with my neighborhood? And what gifts do my neighbors have that they could be sharing with me?

(Information for this blog taken from “Sidewalk serenades in Tacoma neighborhood” by Saint Bryan, Danielle Pascual in the April 22, 2020 KING 5 Evening report.)