Do you wish you had a badass group of women to discuss patriarchy with every month, you are in luck! Registration is now open for Matriarchal Blessing’s Women Circle 2026. Registration is only open for one month then will close for the rest of the year on February 24, so upgrade to founding member soon! All details can be found here.
This was a comment left last week’s post: We need a village, but we dream of a man. If that comment section is any indication, us community-cravers are in good company:
“I have many great friendships and feel connected. But that’s not the same as feeling supported. Everyone’s capitalism+patriarchy- centered lives are also too full, too heavy to contribute to my daily support when I’m needing it intensely.” Elizabeth Tidwell
“I have friends, I have groups I attend. But I still don’t have a supportive community… I feel so stumped on how to find community… any thoughts on how to find a truly authentic, supportive community?” Ida Jagaric
That’s the million dollar question Ida: how? How do we find or construct authentic, supportive community in such an individualistic, patriarchal, capitalistic, nuclear-family-obsessed society?
I recently received a similar question in my anonymous question submission form:
“I left Mormonism around the same time you did. I KNOW it was the right decision, but the one lingering big fat hole is community. I have a few good friends, but damn, I just feel like I’ll never replace that strong of a community—like I’ll never have “a people” ever again. It sucks. I know it’s not your typical content, but I would love to hear how you deal with this and any ideas you have on how to create community outside of religion.”
I feel this. I have friends. I attend some groups. I have our society’s catch-all solution for community—the nuclear family—but that community itch… it’s still itchy.
So where can we go, what can we do that doesn’t involve moving to a different country, spending a ton of money, getting a different personality or going to a church we don’t believe in?
Today we are going to explore tapping into a resource for community that we all have in some form or another regardless of how old, single, introverted or atheist we are: our neighborhood.
I know, I know, it can feel daunting. It can feel impossible or imperfect. There are political differences, age differences and personality differences. But man! How cool would it be to have “a people” immediately surrounding you?
For many of us, our relationships with our neighbors don’t extend far beyond a half smile and a nod while taking out the trash.
How do we go from a group of wildly different, barely acquaintances to a tight-knit group who has each other’s backs?
Thankfully we have an expert on this exact question that is going to fill us with a vision and hold our hand through the process today.
I first found Graham McBain while engaging in my favorite pastime…. scrolling TikTok. From the first video, I could not click that follow button fast enough. I immediately watched 15 more of his videos.
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Graham’s videos are all about how to turn neighborhoods into community. He talks about how he did it and how others have done it. I liked his content so much I messaged him and asked to interview him.
While we were talking, I found myself being filled with something in short supply these days: hope. What once felt really daunting and overwhelming suddenly felt really exciting and do-able.
I’ve been inspired.
The beginning of Graham’s tale sounded very familiar to me—moved into a neighborhood, made a few friends, became jealous whenever tight knit groups and neighborhoods were encountered, wanted that so badly but felt flummoxed on how to get it.
That’s where our paths diverge. Graham started taking steps to turn his neighborhood into a tight knit community and now he has one. I’m still stuck wishing for one.
Here’s his tale:1
Graham: “So I moved to Sacramento about eight years ago and we had a one year old. We’re here because my wife’s family is here, and I was just having a hell of a time making friends. I tried to do it through the startup tech world… joined a hockey league… but I was just not really making a lot of friends.
What really set it off for me was we had some friends that came trick or treating in our neighborhood and they brought their whole friend group. I was like, ‘Man, I really want that.’
It’s like seven families that all really knew each other and they all went and did stuff together all the time.
There was a block party in our neighborhood that happened on the Fourth of July and that was the only real neighborhood thing that happened.
There was some loose connection in the neighborhood (a couple of playdates), but I had always wanted like a tight knit community.
I wanted my kids to grow up like that. I didn’t want to have to drive them to every play date. I didn’t want to be the scheduler of all of their events. I wanted kids to just knock on each other’s doors and play.
So one year, the Fourth of July block party was coming up and I thought, I’m just going to do like a summer of games. Like water gun fights, I’ll start with that…
So I made flyers and I put my kids in the wagon and I just knocked on all the doors in my neighborhood.
I was like, ‘Hi, I want to be your friend. Do you want to be my friend? Here, I’m doing this stuff. Let’s hang out and be friends.’
I was expecting people to be like, ‘Ew. You need friends? How lame and sad.’
But nobody was like that. Nobody slammed the door on my face Everybody was like, ‘This is so great! Thank you!’ There were a lot of older people who were like ‘It used to be like this! It’s so great it’s happening again.’
The first summer was just games in my backyard, which was just a dirt pit, and was still so fun. Everybody had a great time by the end of it.
And then other people started being like I could host this, we could do that.
So the next spring, I hosted a planning party. I invited everybody over. I didn’t want it to just be my thing, so I got a whiteboard, ordered pizza and was like, ‘Let’s plan our year as a community. Everybody threw out ideas and then I was like, ‘Ok what day are you hosting that idea?’
Everybody sort of picked their thing they could host. We got it all on the calendar.
And now we do 11 annual events a year that are recurring seasonal events.
I host Friday front yard happy hours in the summer where every Friday in my front yard or somebody else’s yard, there’s a happy hour.
There is a moms’ Valentine’s Day. They all wear Moo Moos and eat chocolate.
One of my best friends in the neighborhood is this guy Tom who is 70, so there’s inter-generational relationships…
There is a group of older women who hold regular walking groups now.
We have someone who hosts a huge Halloween party every year for everyone.
We had someone who hosted an ugly sweater and bacon party who made a bacon trophy and etched people’s names into it.
Last weekend we did walking cocktails. Three different houses had a cocktail and we went in between them. Those were a lot of people who don’t have kids or kids that are older and out of the house.”
Me: “So how did you get started teaching others?”
Graham: “I just kept thinking, this is so great. Everybody should have this. It costs nothing. It’s what everybody thinks of when they picture an idealized world.
But then instead of reaching for it, we renovate our kitchen thinking if I expand this by two feet, then I’ll be happy.
And our lives are so busy. You never hang out with the friends you do have because you have to plan it and that takes so much work. But with a neighborhood? It’s easy. I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve gotten a text message at 9:30pm on a Saturday that said, ‘Hey we’re watching UFC fights if you want to walk over.’
That’s great. There’s the male loneliness epidemic solved. Because it’s 70 feet from my house. My kids are asleep, but I can walk there, walk back…
So I was having lunch with a friend who was desperately lonely, so I started to help him with his neighborhood. After he hosted his first block party he was like, ‘It’s working!’ So I was just like ‘Should I help people do this?’
Then one day I was thinking if I money was no object, didn’t have to work, if I could do anything with my life, what would I do?
And it’s this.
It would be to help other people turn their neighborhoods into communities. Because it’s the best feeling in the world.”
Me: “Ok, so how many households participate in your neighborhood events?”
Graham: “We have like 20 regular families that come, not to all of the events, but some. It’s probably like 50-ish people. Then there’s a whole bunch of people interacting on the Facebook group. Probably like 100 total people, maybe 20-ish families with kids.”
Me: “Wow, that’s quite an accomplishment. Okay, teach us how we can do this too. What are your 10 steps?”
