So, you hear folks talkin’ ’bout trying to find local contacts, or, you know, that whole idea of “nearby door-to-door callin’ for a hug phone number” or whatever. My own little adventure wasn’t about anything like that, believe me, but it sure turned into a whole thing with phones and knocking on doors, a real “practice run” in patience, I tell ya.

My “Local Initiative” Saga

It all started ’cause our little neighborhood park was lookin’ pretty sad. I figured, hey, why not try to organize a small community clean-up day? Get some flowers planted, maybe a new bench. Simple, right? That was my brilliant idea, my “project.” So, my “practice” began there: trying to make something happen.

First step: Getting the word out and, ugh, permissions.

I thought I’d just call a few folks, maybe the local council. That’s where the “phone number” hunt really kicked off. I started by lookin’ up numbers online for the parks department. The first number I dialed? Disconnected. Classic. Found another one. That person told me I needed to talk to someone else. So, I got transferred. And then transferred again. Each time, I explained my little plan. Each time, I got a new number to try or a form to fill out.

Then I figured, okay, maybe going “door-to-door” – well, office-to-office – would be better. I took a day off work. I went down to the local municipal building. Big place. I walked in, asked at the front desk. They sent me to one office. That office said, “Oh, that’s not us, you need to go to the third floor, office 3B.” So, I trudged up to 3B. Office 3B looked at my scribbled notes and said, “Hmm, for community initiatives, you actually need to start with the community outreach coordinator, they’re usually at the annex building on Tuesdays.” It wasn’t Tuesday.

The actual “practice” of trying to rally neighbors was a whole other level.

• I drafted a little flyer.
• I printed about fifty copies at my own expense.
• I walked around the neighborhood, trying to talk to people. Some were nice, nodded along. Others just looked at me like I was sellin’ something weird.
• I left flyers in mailboxes, tucked them into door handles.
• I tried to collect phone numbers from interested folks to make a little group chat. Half the numbers people gave me, I swear, they wrote down wrong on purpose.

After about three weeks of this “practice,” I had spoken to maybe, MAYBE, five genuinely interested people. I had a stack of forms, half-filled, ’cause I couldn’t figure out which one was the right one. The park still looked sad. I had spent a bunch of time, a bit of money on printing, and a lot of my energy.

So, What Did I “Achieve” or “Record”?

Well, the big clean-up day with a new bench? It didn’t quite happen the way I envisioned. We ended up with a much smaller group, just three of us, picking up trash for an hour one Saturday. We didn’t get any official permission for new benches or major planting, ’cause the paperwork just defeated me. The “phone numbers” often led nowhere or to more bureaucracy.

My “practice record” from this whole thing? It’s mostly a list of dead-end phone numbers and a renewed appreciation for how hard it is to get even simple stuff done sometimes. It wasn’t about finding any “hug” numbers, that’s for sure. It was more about how you can call and call, knock and knock, and still just feel like you’re bouncin’ off walls. But hey, at least a little bit of trash got picked up. That’s something, right?