Porching
Quiet Conversations, by Kyle Ragsdale.
Social Distance Porching with the Tafts, photo by Emily Schwank
The cultural changes of recent decades, created by growing suburbs and modernization, that draw families inside or onto back porches and backyards, have also made neighborhoods places of more isolation, where community does not always naturally occur. Neighborhoods become places where we don’t know our neighbors. Porching was born out of the desire of a few families to build community in their own neighborhood in Herron Morton back in 2007. The practice was adopted by the Harrison Center years later and grew out of interviewing and listening to our neighbors about their hopes and dreams for their neighborhood. They wanted it to be a safer, more connected place to live.
When people are connected, they are healthy. When people are connected within a neighborhood, their neighborhood is healthy. When this happens across a community, the community comes alive with vibrancy, as neighbors lean on each other in times of need and celebrate with each other in times of joy. By creating a rhythm of gathering on front porches (or in the front yard—no porch needed!), porching becomes a powerful force for building social capital in a neighborhood.
Neighborhoods customizing porching to meet their needs, including porch crawls, progressive porching, and musical porches.
Social Distance Porching, painting by Kyle Ragsdale. 2000
The Harrison Center has been hosting Porch Parties, or “porching,” since 2014. This practice of gathering on your front porch to spend time with neighbors has become a movement across 52 counties in Indiana, and led to city wide party initiatives. This includes a partnership with the Indianapolis Motor Speedway to kick off the Indy 500 with porch parties during the month of May. This involved a huge west side porch party at the Heslar Naval Armory in Riverside that brought together over eight neighborhoods and 20 civic organizations.
The community that comes from gathering on a front porch allows neighbors to get to know and enjoy one another, connecting new and long term neighbors in the ongoing story of their shared home. Porching helps people build relationships between neighbors, businesses, and even across neighborhoods. It offers an avenue to befriend and listen; the conversations, where issues that are closest to neighbor’s hearts naturally come up, have led to the creation of the Greatriarch program, and other nonprofit and civic initiatives, including Discovering Broadway.
Our artists have applied their creativity to porching and produced themed art, porch party yard signs, videos, and songs inspired by the practice. “How to porch” kits and print materials make porching as accessible as possible. It can be adapted to the specific feel and traditions of a neighborhood or city, to any budget, and any setting. We have seen porching in front yards, driveways, curbs and even apartment hallways.
Recently, it’s been adapted to the changing demands of personal interactions due to COVID-19. With Social Distance Porching, neighbors come out to their front porches every day at 5 pm to share “hey neighbor” waves, and even conversations across social distance from their own individual porches. Adopting the lifestyle of porching, a person to person approach to community building, reminds us of how connected we are, even in a time when we have to be physically separate.
The Harrison Center has teamed up with the community radio station WQRT for a Harrison Center Radio Hour. The first episode theme was porching, featuring songs written by past musicians in residence that celebrate the tradition, even as it is adapted to the changing times. You can catch the show live on WQRT as an eight week series. The full episodes are available any time on Soundcloud.
Listen to Episode 1 of Music in Place: Porching
Listen to our porching songs!
To learn more about the culture/practice of porching, check out HC director Joanna Taft on Drink Culture, WFYI, Tapping into What Matters, Livable City, No Mean City, Shelterforce Magazine, Cardus/Comment Magazine.