It started organically, as things that grow do. Annamaire, my good friend and plot
neighbor in the McPherson Community Garden, and I share a love for the garden and gathering
people. Garden potlucks were a natural byproduct of our common interests. On several
occasions over the summer of 2025, we’d clear the picnic tables off, tote my portable propane
grill over and set cornhole and a Bluetooth speaker up for an evening with friends.
As the summer drew to a close and everything growing had been harvested by gardeners or birds, an idea began to sprout. Annamarie and I dreamed of expanding our garden gatherings to include all Skinker DeBaliviere neighbors. Bringing people together who already know one another is entertaining. But bringing people together who don’t is impactful. As WashU graduate students studying social work and architecture, Annamarie and I have eyes for creating environments, physical and interpersonal, designed to facilitate human connection. We saw an opportunity for neighbors who might not otherwise cross paths to gather and feed each other in a pop-up third space created in the garden.
So we gathered the requisite tools: Permission from garden organizer Andy Cross, a hand-drawn flyer, Gordon Food Service hamburgers and hotdogs and the spirit of community. We spread the word as well as we knew how, and on April 19th we hosted the first event. We had a surprisingly robust turn-out of around 50 attendees. We were heartened by the response and began planning the next.
On August 2nd, we organized our second, this one with a significantly smaller turn-out of about 20 friends and neighbors willing to brave the heat and the bugs. The next installation, on October 18th, will have already occurred by the publication of this article. Annamarie and I aim to continue hosting semi-regular BBQ potluck meals in the McPherson Community Garden during the warmer months.
On the surface, the McPherson Community Garden BBQ Potlucks are a low-stakes chance for neighbors to share a meal. But their meaning is rooted in a much deeper truth. Being together is and always has been a radical act, especially when times are tough. The illusion of separateness is the root of much suffering in our city, our country, our world.
We are siloed by systems driving us toward optimization and hyper-specialization, until there’s no time for the slowness of authentic interaction. Our once biologically adaptive fear of the other prompts us to self-select into groups of likeness: Like minds, like strata, like beliefs.
Dialoging face-to-face with people who are different in every imaginable way challenges our limited perceptions and helps us remain human in what feels an increasingly inhumane world. Building community, even over cheap hotdogs in your local community garden, is an act of resistance.
Skinker-DeBaliviere excels here. It’s more than a set of buildings and people that happen to be located within the same geographic area. It’s a neighborhood, with a felt sense of cohesion. And that’s no accident. Many neighbors volunteer their skills to organize, beautify, protect, advocate, document, fund, engage and improve the neighborhood. Community takes effort. The second law of thermodynamics warns us that systems tend toward entropy without energetic intervention.
Our community garden BBQ potlucks are one part of manifold energetic inputs of Skinker DeBaliviere residents who maintain and increase the cohesion that makes this neighborhood thrive. Your active participation in events and efforts is a vital aspect to its flourishing.
So when you see one of our flyers in the garden, the community boards at Four Corners or in the SDCC Newsletter, mark your calendar and come be part of the solution.
Originally published in The Times of Skinker-DeBaliviere, November–December 2026.
