by Tamar Lechter

The Crestwood neighborhood has been embracing community and positivity with a neighborhood-wide initiative, inspired by the National Children’s Museum. Neighbors are creating positive signs on the front of their homes to provide fun activities for the family, and inspirational messages for the community.

Frances Burg, the Operations Manager for the new National Children’s Museum, which opened just two weeks ago, reached out through the Crestwood listserv. Now that the COVID-19 social distancing guidelines are in effect, the museum is finding alternative ways to reach the District’s youngest residents.

“We’re trying to engage kids from afar,” said Burg, “We post new content every week. Next Saturday’s theme is Community Connection. We’re thinking through how to socialize without being social. We were inspired by what Italy was doing and how to get kids outside.”

To kick off the effort, the National Children’s Museum offered an annual membership to the first child who reported the most found banners in their neighborhood. Households across the Crestwood neighborhood participated, displaying their various messages on paper, table cloths and sheets.

The scavenger hunt took place on Sunday afternoon, with families walking, biking and driving by to see the many banners displayed. Neighbors took photographs and discussed the messages they saw (maintaining a 6-foot separation).

Webster Street neighbor Cooki Callinet was excited to take part in the initiative.

“I just thought it was a fabulous idea,” said Callinet. “We have so many kids in the neighborhood who participate in egg rolls and Halloween. This is a wonderful way to get families out during this crisis and make something beautiful and happy and special. I saw a lot of families today and they were all so happy.”

Fifteen year old Amaia had her own reasons for participating. “Honestly, I was very bored and when I heard about this, I told my neighbor and we began making posters as a kind of distraction and a way to utilize our bottled-up creativity during this extremely boring quarantine. And also, of course, we wanted to make ours unique and funny to remind everyone of the hope we have and try to get a laugh out of people, communicating as a community.”

Crestwood has been actively connecting throughout this COVID-19 period. On March 17th, they held a shamrock hunt, where neighbors displayed paper shamrocks on their doors.

What are some ways you’ve seen people trying to safely crack the stay-at-home tedium?

Note: Obviously at this point in time, if you’re going out to see neighborhood signs, doing so with proper social distancing is critical. Traveling by car is one option, as is ensuring you maintain six feet of separation if you’re walking or biking.