She didn’t know what to expect. She planned it for 5 to 7 on a Friday evening. Many neighbors showed up and folks stayed until almost midnight. “It was clear to me instantly that people in the neighborhood were really hungry for that opportunity,” Brendmoen says, “a very comfortable way to introduce yourself to people in an environment that is casual and informal.”
She set it up with three rules. First, hosts keep it simple: a cooler and a few chairs, maybe a couple cans of pop in the ice. No spreads, no cooking, nothing that tempts the next host to outdo you. Second, if you need the bathroom, you walk home to your own. That means no host has to clean their house first, and as Brendmoen puts it, “If you can't walk home to the bathroom, you are probably too far out of the neighborhood, and should probably start your own parties in your own neighborhood.” Third, somebody takes the flamingo home at the end, and wherever that bird lands is next week's party.
The bathroom rule keeps the party small on purpose, so instead of swelling, the idea hops to the next neighborhood. That's how it reached Rich Holst, a mile east in St. Paul's North End. “I've lived in my neighborhood for 19 years and could probably count on one hand how many neighbors I knew,” he says. He'd also grown tired of the tone online. “Everything on the Facebook page, I thought it was mostly negative stuff. I thought, maybe this would be a way to change some of that attitude in our neighborhood just a little bit.”
Holst pulled in a neighbor, Lena Buggs, who had bought her house the summer before. “It's really simple, just a cooler table and chairs,” Buggs says. “Come on down, meet your neighbor, that kind of community-building thing. From there it escalated.” They ran nine straight weeks. One night the fire department parked a ladder truck out front for the kids to climb; another night Holst dragged a detached basketball hoop into the street so kids could ride scooters in circles around it.
The startup cost is front-loaded and small. “The first time, I spent maybe 5 to 6 hours investing effort into this thing, knocking on people's doors and getting a good turnout,” Holst says. “I was worried I would throw a party and no one would show up. Now I spend maybe 10 minutes a week on this, figuring out who's going to do it next. And there are so many volunteers that we have to schedule it out.”
Sources
Plastic pink flamingos hold the key to informal community ties in St. Paul — Bill Lindeke, MinnPost, August 2016.
What Is Flamingo Friday? — Justin Meyer, The Popular Flamingo, February 2023.
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