Hi, My name is Regina Chavarín, and I'd like to address the issues you should think about when deciding whether or not to accept help for your neighborhood from outside groups or agencies.

Things to consider about having another group is that you really need to know that many times their projects and their volunteer help can be short-lived. It may be that they have a 6-month commitment, it may be that they have an 18-month commitment. But all in all, you want to have a good working relationship, because everyone wants to feel like they've succeeded at accomplishing and having a healthy working relationship to accomplish some common goals.

One of the things you'd want to have is some transfer of information, so that you can make sure you have contacts, and the names of people who were able to make donations or contributions to your group or donate materials. Think about how can you make sure that you have some transfer of information, so that when you need to take over, you'll know where to go and what to do.

Other factors to consider are that you really have a sense of what you want. If you're not there yet, then you work at building consensus within your own community members, and then making sure that that is communicated with the other projects.

One of the exciting things about having outside volunteer groups, also is that it really helps to know that other people care and you have support. And you can have a multitude of support and services come as a result of opening it up beyond your neighborhood.

Just in the experiences we've had with our one-acre lot here, we've had volunteer engineering help, we've had horticultural help, we've had groups come in and give us advice on irrigation, planting -- you can bring in specialists about different kinds of plants, what's good and natural to your area, bring in a whole multitude of ideas so for you to think about. It just expands your scope and possibilities of what you can possibly do with your project that you may not have been able to think about or that you may not have had the resources to do.

So you really need to think about how you would use outside groups, and how to allow for transition of power. What would you do in this situation?

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