The first month after moving into a new neighborhood is often spent attempting to make a good impression on the community you’ve joined. The overzealous might even try to check off a list of good deeds: baking treats for the next-door neighbor, mowing the lawn of the guy across the street, pulling in the trashcans for the elderly woman a couple of doors down.
These kind acts would almost certainly win the affection of your neighbors. But how long would they last? Fred Rogers, the quintessential good neighbor, said that a lasting neighborly spirit requires making a habit out of kindness. Few people have followed this advice as closely as Lamar Harris, the “Mayor of Cherry Hill.”
Harris has lived in the same New Jersey neighborhood for most of his life. He gives to his community the best he can, picking up his neighbors’ trash, delivering their mail, and calling on them regularly. To know him is to love him, his neighbors have said.
Harris has lived on his own since his father died five years ago and struggles with developmental disabilities. But he’s gotten by thanks to his neighbors on Cherry Circle, who he called his “family.” So when they found out Harris was weeks away from losing his home, Harris’ neighbors rallied around him and raised more than $50,000 in one week to pay off Harris’ unpaid taxes and interest payments.
“People don’t understand what this home means to him,” Terri Fretz, who has known Harris for 38 years, told CNN. “He loves his home, and we will fight until the very end to keep him here.”
When asked why she and the rest of Cherry Hill are willing to defend Harris from foreclosure, Fretz said, “That’s what family does, right?”
Harris’ story is a good reminder of just how invaluable community is. Being a good neighbor is about more than just pleasing those around us. It’s about building and strengthening relationships we can depend upon when the need arises. A neighborhood isn’t just a place to live, it’s a support system and a family. All it requires is kindness.
“You are all proof that kindness can make a difference in a person’s life in a big way,” a GoFundMe page for Harris reads. “There is still good in the world. There is still hope for us all.”
—By Kaylee McGhee
