Why I am Building This

I grew up in a small town in Georgia (this photo could be from my town square) where the grocery store wasn't just a place to get milk — it was where you caught up with your neighbor, ran into your teacher, and spent twenty minutes longer than you planned because someone always stopped to talk. Nobody called it community building. It was just Tuesday.

I've spent my adult life chasing that feeling across a lot of different places — rural islands, bustling cities, overseas assignments with my husband and kids, and eventually the Texas suburbs. Through every move and every fresh start I kept asking the same question: what actually makes people feel like they belong somewhere?

Here's what I've learned after seven years in Steiner Ranch. Connection exists here, I've felt it, and I know you have too. But in the suburbs it tends to happen in spite of the way we live, not because of it. We're all busy. We all mean to reach out. And somehow the garage door closes and another week passes. Steiner Ranch has so much more to give — we just need a better way to find each other.

The Porch Project is my attempt to go back to my blueprint. To recreate that small town feeling where people know your name at the store, where conversations happen spontaneously, where neighbors are actually neighbors. It starts as a platform — a trusted local directory, a community events calendar, a place to discover what's happening right outside your door. But the goal is bigger than that. The goal is the kind of community where people sit on their front porches again.

Warmly,

Meredith