Stories matter. They reflect our culture and community. We want to help shift Iowa City’s culture to value long-term community strength. We believe we can do that by normalizing stories about social justice, solidarity, and folks reclaiming their power!

We are amplifying stories of neighbors already doing the work. We have spent the past few months interviewing neighbors who are building resilience within their neighborhoods through a diverse set of actions. We are sharing these stories in the Little Village to empower neighbors to invest their time and resources locally. We have also partnered with FilmScene and local filmmaker Josh Booth to produce Stories of Community, a series of short films about these local resilience stories.

We acknowledge that we are in a position of power to shape the narratives we are curating. We recognize that the lens through which we tell these stories can significantly alter their essence. Our storytelling choices can influence perspective, challenge assumptions, or perpetuate harmful stereotypes. We hold ourselves responsible and hope our community keeps us accountable as we endeavor to share these stories.

If you want to share a story, want us to document a story through film, or have any questions or concerns, please get in touch with our Director of Cultural Narrative at [email protected]

Judy’s Story

Judy Nyren has been involved with the Lucas Farms neighborhood for quite a long time and has lived in a Moffit house in the neighborhood for 47 years. She coordinates many special events that bring her neighbors together.

One of these neighborhood events is a lighting contest, usually held in December, where neighbors decorate their homes and vote for their neighbors for best lights. On the day of the event, folks drive through the parking lot across from Highland Ave. Park to get a map guide with a storyline written by Judy, connecting the different light displays in the neighborhood. Neighborhood volunteers help hand out stockings with treats. This year, they helped pass out sleds to the first 30 families with kids!

Judy also organizes the Lucas Farms History Days. The event includes walking and biking tours featuring the hidden history of the neighborhood, tours of its special gardens, and music celebrations featuring community musicians. Judy’s love for history and building community within her neighborhood motivate her to continue documenting the past and present stories of Lucas Farms.

Consider visiting or attending the Lucas Farms History Days happening this July!

Alex’s Story

Alex Rain held their first House of Horrors 25 years ago on Rochester Ave in Iowa City. Initially, there was just a small display in the yard to entertain the neighborhood kids and a couple of scenes in a haunted garage during trick-or-treating. Alex worked in theater throughout high school and college. They did everything from set and prop design to stage managing to directing and writing, and truly regret not pursuing that field professionally. Luckily for Iowa City, their love of theater and Halloween has caused Alex’s House of Horrors to grow grander each year, and their set and prop design talent truly began to shine.

As often as possible, Alex reclaims material for their creations from things that would otherwise end up in the landfill. They also reach out on Freeshare to ask neighbors for specific items they need for builds. 

Alex suffers from Parkinson’s and, therefore, can’t work many days. This hasn’t set them back, as they now build props all year long when they are feeling well. They spent 590 hours in September and October alone. This includes the two or more hours a day that are required to set the haunted yard up for visitors throughout October.

Alex’s House of Horrors consists of two events: a haunted trail that runs in their front and back yard and a haunted house consisting of around five scenes through Alex’s home. Visitors can explore the trail with music, lighting, and visual effects from dark to 9:15 p.m. Thursday to Sunday nights for the entire month of October. The haunted house is a special event that runs during trick-or-treating only. During the big Halloween event, Alex entertains visitors who come for their treats. This year, they wrote around 100 fortunes and built a fortune-telling machine to distribute candy and spooky fun to those who came. Several volunteers, around ten this year, act and help run the event on Halloween. Although the haunted house is designed to be very scary, children are given the option to walk through without the actors jumping out and yelling if they prefer.

Alex’s work has inspired kids and adults to become more engaged with their neighbors during the Halloween season. In fact, two pre-teens have started to design and built props to help entertain their neighborhoods. Alex has also designed neighbors’ Halloween yards and built an elaborately decorated stand for a disabled neighbor to hand out candy for trick-or-treaters from.

This year, more than 220 kids and 150 adults came by Plum St., topping even their highest numbers from the original Iowa City location on Rochester Ave. Almost all of them braved the haunted house the year. Alex’s House of Horrors is a unique space where people from all generations can gather and celebrate their love for Halloween together during October. It has truly become a multigenerational neighborhood event, just as Alex had always hoped it would.

Neighbors have donated about $400 worth of cash and supply donations to Alex’s project this year. They are grateful for their neighborhood’s support and emphasize that building props and seeing the joy they bring neighbors fills them with unmeasurable happiness. Consider visiting Plum St. next Halloween!

The Front Porch Music Festival

The Harveys and the Plattes organize a small music festival in their Longfellow neighborhood every year. Neighbors offer up their porches as stages for local musicians, and festival goers enjoy live music and treats from charming neighborhood stands. Trevor Harvey describes the festival as “music not for profit, but for community building”; anyone can participate in the space, with no stage, just porches and yards.

Inspired by the Waterhill Festival in Ann Arbor, they established the Front Porch Music Festival in 2015. With their diverse backgrounds in music, they understood the power it has to bring people together.

The organizers’ start was simple. They fliered houses and made a website to share their idea. Then went door to door, asking neighbors to participate. They announced their vision in the neighborhood newsletter and asked the City for funding through their Longfellow Neighborhood Association. The festival successfully provided a space for community building, and the neighborhood wanted to see it continue. The Plattes and Harveys mention that neighbors, players, and porch folks ask about the festival every year, with more neighbors offering their porches and more performers reaching out for a chance to play.

But learning from the Waterhill Festival, the organizers were also concerned about creating something sustainable. They want to keep the festival neighborhood-grounded while still creating that sense of openness and inclusion.

They’ve achieved this in various ways:

• Most performers have a connection to the Longfellow neighborhood.
• They recognize that they don’t need to expand the festival every year and subscribe to a growth narrative. This means the festival is not imposing on the whole neighborhood and is respectful of neighbors not interested in participating.
• They are committed to maintaining the organic nature of the program to keep it achievable and neighbors engaged.

Check out the Front Porch Festival next fall at the Longfellow neighborhood or at https://frontporchmusicfestival.com/.

Abdias’ Story

Abdias organizes and coaches pick-up soccer games for kids in his South District neighborhood at Wetherby Park. He started the program in 2022 because of his love for the game and its power to unite people and build community. The South District is a multicultural neighborhood with residents from Sudan, Cameroon, Mexico, Laos, and Vietnam. Abdias noticed that as diverse as his neighbors were, they all had one thing in common: they loved soccer. Players of all different ages join the pick-up games, young and old. Abdias paints the field and contributes, along with his neighbors, to buying soccer pinnies, jerseys, and goalposts. The soccer field has become a shared space for the neighborhood, with kids from Faith Academy playing in the soccer field in the mornings. Abdias mentions that coordinating soccer at the park has been challenging, with the City needing to be more supportive of making the field a better playing space. Each time the grass is mowed, Abdias must repaint the field lines, a financial cost he takes on; even the kids sometimes chip in. To Abdias, this investment in his neighborhood is a passion and an opportunity to make his community a better place for kids than the one he grew up in. In the future, Abdias envisions a mini-tournament and inviting different neighborhoods to play. You can find him on Facebook at Iowa City Soccer Wetherby Park!

Fatima’s Story

Faitma joined a few of her neighbors in starting a neighborhood association in their neighborhood, the Wonderful Westside Neighborhood Association. As one of their first projects, they have they decided to create public art for their neighborhood to enjoy. With the help of Loyce L Arthur, Professor of Art at the University of Iowa, they are painting their neighborhood’s story of peace, diversity and community. Kids in the neighborhood have also contributed to the project by painting parts of the mural and artwork on the tables outside the Pheasant Ridge Neighborhood Center. The mural inspires their neighbors and provides a communal space for them to better get to know each other. You can visit their Wonderful Westside Neighborhood to see their work!