July 2024 – North-Florence Neighborhood Association

Hi Friends!

Hope everyone is staying cool out there. We have had an eventful summer this year. The ice cream social with Kamala’s Creamery was an enjoyable event that brought many of us together. We also secured the mini-grant to help out with various projects around the neighborhood, including providing mulch for the boulevards and funding the neighborhood block party.

For this year’s fall garage sale, we would like to build a map of households that plan on participating. If you expect to have a sale at your place, please fill out the form at the following link.

With the block party coming up on September 14th, we want to engage with as many neighbors as possible. This is a family friendly event, so feel free to invite along your neighbors with or without kids to participate in the fun. Come on by and bring a chair to meet up with neighbors and enjoy some free food. We are looking for volenteers to help with the event. If you are interested in helping, please reach out to Laura Gray at lauraegray@gmail.com

Quarterly Joke

Parallel lines have so much in common. It’s a shame they’ll never meet.

Joke provided by icanhazdadjoke.com

Quarterly Poem

Sweet Peas.

By Hattie Howard

By helpful fingers taught to twine
Around its trellis, grew
A delicate and dainty vine;
The bursting bud, its blossom sign,
Inlaid with honeyed-dew.

Developing by every art
To floriculture known,
From tares exempt, and kept apart,
Careful, as if in some fond heart
Its legume germs were sown.

So thriving, not for me alone
Its beauty and perfume –
Ah, no, to rich perfection grown
By flower mission loved and known
In many a darkened room.

And once in strange and solemn place,
Mid weeping uncontrolled,
Upon the crushed and snowy lace
I saw them scattered ’round a face
All pallid, still, and cold.

Oh, some may choose, as gaudy shows,
Those saucy sprigs of pride
The peony, the red, red rose;
But give to me the flower that grows
Petite and pansy-eyed.

Around the Block

If you would like to submit your joke, poem, or feel good story to the NFNA Quarterly, please send it to
Timothy Albertson at nfnamail@northflorence.org

Note: I reserve the right to review and reject any submission if I find it not in alignment with NFNA objectives.

Upcoming Events

September 14th – Block Party
When: 2:00PM to 6:00PM
Where: Along Bigelow Street, South of Merle

September 21st – Fall Garage Sale Day

September 28th – Dumpster Day
When: 8:00AM to 12:00PM
Where: St. Paul’s Episcopal Church Parking Lot

October 15th – NFNA Q4 Meeting
When: 6:30PM
Where: St. Paul’s Episcopal Church

Peoria Cares

The City of Peoria Community Development Department has a program that is focused on keeping neighborhoods beautiful and safe. If you have concerns about graffiti, pot holes, street lights etc. please use this opportunity to contact the city through Peoria Cares.

Call 309-494-2273 or submit online at: https://www.peoriagov.org/903/Peoria-Cares