Missouri Good Neighbor Week 2024

September 28th – October 4th is Missouri Good Neighbor Week. 

Missouri's Governor signed legislation HB1738 on July 1, 2022, establishing Missouri Good Neighbor Week. The week begins on National Good Neighbor Day (first created in 1978 by President Jimmy Carter). Being a good neighbor offers tremendous health benefits, reduces crime, reduces loneliness, improves communities, and improves our quality of life.

This effort has a record of success already! Missouri Good Neighbor Week was selected as the best neighboring program in the United States for 2023 by Neighborhoods USA.

During the week, Missourians are encouraged to “participate in events and activities to establish connections with their neighbors." In 2024 our goal is to document 20,000 acts of neighboring (we documented 19,778 in 2023). In 2023, 74 service events were reported, thousands of visitors visited the website, and 62 were nominated as engaged neighbors. 

We have additional goals for 2024, like partnering with Habitat for Humanity to raise awareness of their programs and generate funding for Missouri Good Neighbor Week prizes and program costs.

We have always needed sponsors for the prizes we give to the statewide for best acts of neighboring and most engaged neighbors. In 2023, that totaled $2200 and we would like to increase that to $5000 in 2024. The two sponsors of the week -- MU Extension and Hopeful Neighborhood Project -- both commit over $10,000 toward Missouri Good Neighbor Week each year.

These new funds would aid in my marketing the week statewide.  We had a fantastic amount of media coverage in support of this effort during 2023. But getting the word out is essential to raising awareness of this week and what it means to be an engaged neighbor. We will be reminding communities.

Not that many decades ago, Americans said their immediate neighbors were their most important social contacts. They got together regularly for dinners, and activities and helped each other with children and life. Fast forward to this year and less than 15 percent of Americans know the names of their immediate neighbors. Our research in Missouri shows that a majority of residents say a good neighbor is someone who is quiet and leaves them alone! That is a big shift that has a tremendous social impact. Our growing lack of connection among neighbors has decreased our social capital, increased loneliness, negatively impacted our health, and made our neighborhoods and communities more disconnected.

But there is hope, and we are seeing across Missouri how raising awareness of the need for neighbors has led to new events, new neighborhood associations, and new projects to grow social connectedness. Entire cities have embraced the idea, but so have hundreds of individuals who have embraced the idea of becoming engaged neighbors. We believe that is good for our state and our nation.