FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — The ‘Year of the Neighbor’ project started at the beginning of 2020 to address loneliness and to encourage people to reach out to their neighbors.
“With the coronavirus came a lot of occupational disruption and I noticed people were still going to the park, but there was a lot of social distancing, so I wanted to empathize the connection between the people,” Haley Stewart said.
Stewart is in the doctoral occupational therapy program at the University of Arkansas and UAMS.
The ‘Year of the Neighbor 2020’ project is for one of their courses and focuses on community wellness. Her take on the project is a challenge for everyone walking on the trail.
“I had left a bucket of chalk and so I had some motivational quotes, I had and some hopscotch and some games scattered throughout,” she said.
Stewart says this was an interactive way for people to add words of encouragement at her neighborhood park in her hometown of Siloam Springs. She says she was really happy with the response.
“You know at first of course you have that little self-doubt, but once I got to see the different Bible verses and different game putting into it, it was really encouraging and a challenge between all the families in the neighborhood,” she said.
Assistant professor Jeanne Eichler says she’s very proud of her students who took the project and ran with it in a million directions that were unique to them. The students are posting what they did for the project on social media using the hashtag, #YearoftheNeighbor2020.
“It’s such a variety of things, but I can tell you what you see online is only a fraction of what these students have been doing all semester and what they’ve inspired other people to do in the wake of this project,” Eichler said.
If you do something nice or encouraging for your neighbors, you are encouraged to post it on social media using the hashtag #YearoftheNeighbor2020.