Organizing a Neighborhood Snow Brigade

Winter of 2010-2011

We organize each year by putting an article like this one in our neighborhood newsletter:

Ready to Shovel? Snow is coming!

You can be part of Barcroft's Snow Brigade, clearing essential walkways to bus stops, the Community House, Barcroft School and other pedestrian destinations within the neighborhood.

Most of our volunteers use their snow shovels, but we have two County snow blowers just for Barcroft. On Saturday morning, November 20, the County will be training snow blower operators. Training should take no more than half an hour. All are welcome. Call (our coordinator's name) at 703-521-XXXX or send her an email to volunteer.

• Our Barcroft Community House walks, steps and our handicapped access ramp.

• Walks of those who can't do it for themselves. We don't draw fine points about why someone can or can't, or inquire about their physical abilities. If somebody requests, we shovel. We also clear off cars and driveways, including one person with a Mercedes who could afford a commercial service. They are all neighbors and nobody really abuses the offer.

• Major routes to our neighborhood school and metro bus service.

Priorities are very informal, and depend mostly on the volunteer doing the shoveling. We have no Metro Bus stops in the neighborhood any more, but there are some along arterials on our borders, and people who use them shovel them out when the County does not. We don't make a special effort for school bus stops, but we could some day although they are not marked.

We have been delighted to have two County-provided snow blowers since 2001, and have a team for each one to take turns operating it and to take the place of anyone who is not available on snow clearing day. The blowers work well in normal snows and are easier to work with than they appear to be--about like a lawnmower. They are essential for clearing transit access routes. The County drops off the blowers in the fall, then picks them up in the Spring for annual maintenence over the summer. They are Ariens brand blowers, probably the Compact model. The County usually provides one container of gas, and the keepers of the snow blowers provide gas for the rest of the season. They can give our Treasurer a receipt for reimbursement if they want to. We try to take turns as operators, since wrestling the snow blower around can be tiring, and three or four hours is max.

We maintain a list of volunteers and a list of those who need to be shoveled. Our Snow Brigade Coordinator matches the needs with the shovelers, and makes adjustments for those who are out of town, have to work or have a bad back. We use email or cell phones. Our list of volunteers and those who need shoveling has grown over the years.

We know that many Barcrofters just shovel their neighbors who need help without any need for organizing. In those cases having the brigade just helps to reinforce that behavior as the neighborly thing to do. Some who need help are reluctant to ask, and respond better to a next door neighbor who just shovels them out, rather than having to contact the civic association. Sometimes a third person passes on the name to us informally.

We have a Web page up on our Snow Brigade.

Please email me or email Sharon Tope if you need more info on how we do it. Those who are shoveled are very appreciative.

Randy Swart

This page was revised on: January 5, 2012.