Tips and tricks for living local

So: you’ve bought your country home. The deed is signed; the furniture has arrived, mostly intact. You’ve spent a weekend relishing in the solitude of your upstate fortress. 

What’s next? Figuring out how to connect with the community you’ve joined. 

It’s not always obvious where to find your people, whether you’re new to a community or whether you’ve lived there your entire life. This guide will offer you some tips and tricks to help you broaden your knowledge of your community, whether you’re looking for a faith-based group, a crafting circle or something else entirely. (Underwater basket weaving, anyone?)

Join a community forum

Some steps out in the community can be taken without leaving the comfort of your own home. 

Joining an online community can help you stay up-to-date on events around you, connect you with neighbors looking to buy or to sell, or just help you better understand the character of the community. 

There’s plenty of groups on site like Facebook or NextDoor, tailored to your specific county or town. Special mention goes to the Upper Delaware Community Network (found at groups.io/g/UDCommunityNetwork), an email list-serv that acts like a bulletin board for the entire Upper Delaware River Valley. 

Look at your local notice boards

They’re here, they’re there, they’re everywhere: gatherings of pamphlets, posters and business cards, stuck together with push pins or magnets. 

Whether at your local coffee shop or supermarket, your children’s school or local library, bulletin boards don’t just offer a way for local businesses and events to advertise themselves to the community—they offer you a way to learn about the wide variety of what your community has to offer. 

Go to your local library

Libraries aren’t just repositories for knowledge in the form of the word (written, printed and bound; they’re also gathering places, hosting community groups, lecture series and more. 

Want to know where to start? Check out your local library’s event calendar (wsplon

line.libcal.com/calendar for the Western Sullivan Public Library system, waynelibraries.org/events-calendar for the Wayne Library Alliance). 

Go to festivals and markets

Contrary to the name, it’s not just farmers who attend farmers markets. All kinds of local makers can be found there, as well as informational booths about local community groups or volunteer opportunities. They also give you an opportunity to connect with your neighbors, and who knows where that connection might lead—five minutes of conversation, you may find yourself agreeing to attend something you had no idea even existed. 

In addition to regular, weekly markets, annual festivals and fairs are a great time to connect with or learn about community groups—though festival food is definitely still the biggest draw, there. 

Keep your eyes peeled

Sometimes, the best way to connect with your community is right in front of your eyes. 

Plenty of events and community groups advertise their offerings with road signs and posters, scattered as little moments of discovery about the world. Even if the specific event they’re advertising has already passed, taking note of the group on the sign can give you something to look into for future reference. 

Subscribe to your local newspaper

OK, if you’re reading this article, you’ve probably already got that one taken care of. (Good job, you!) But you may not know all of the ways the River Reporter can connect you to your local community. 

Besides the press releases and event notices in the print paper, we’ve got a “Where and When” section between the arts and the sports pages, listing an absolute smorgasbord of community events. Online, we’ve got a comprehensive calendar of community events at riverreporter.com/calendar. And the community groups and arts events we profile are always looking for fresh volunteers, or new eyes in the audience.