Lead Profile: Christy Marshall: a Meddler in Southwest Portland

Ask Christy Marshall to describe herself, and she’ll tell you she’s a “meddler.” Whether it’s organizing a neighborhood clean up, a National Night Out gathering, or an auction at her kids’ school, she likes to have her hands in the mix.

So when Christy, the mother of two boys in a wooded neighborhood in southwest Portland called South Burlingame, heard from a friend about Nextdoor, she was immediately excited about its potential to get more people involved in neighborhood events.

That night, Christy drew the boundaries for Nextdoor South Burlingame and began inviting her neighbors. She started with her personal address book and then leveraged addresses she had gathered during her volunteer efforts for the PTA and National Night Out.

After that, she began asking neighborhood association board members to personally invite the folks on their own contact lists and began passing out flyers at neighborhood events and gathering the email addresses of folks she would invite the next day.

Six months later, Nextdoor South Burlingame has more than 200 members with three to five new members joining each week. And Nextdoor has become the go to tool in her community for organizing everything from neighborhood garage sales to block parties.

But even better than that according to Christy is the way that Nextdoor has brought her community together.

“Nextdoor has created a ‘running commentary’ in the neighborhood”, she says. “Now, when neighbors run into each other on the street, we don’t just say ‘hi’; we actually have something to talk about. Nextdoor has helped us create a small town feel in the middle of big city. It’s like utopia happened overnight!”

Next, Christy is hoping to use Nextdoor to organize a lobbying campaign to bring sidewalks to her neighborhood. Portland city officials look out! We wouldn’t want to be the ones to say “no” to this meddler.

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