A picnic was held on Saturday, September 2, bringing together a crowd of residents interested in revitalizing the green area, located in the old housing estate on Popiełuszki Street.

The event was one of the initiatives that took place in Krosno as part of the NCK Community Centre + grant program. Perhaps there would be nothing special about it, after all, smaller or larger picnics are regularly organized in our city, if it were not for the fact that from the beginning to the end it was the idea, and successively the realization, of the local community living in the area.

In Krosno, a situation where people who have had no previous exposure to the design procedure reach for funds with which they can make their immediate surroundings more attractive, does not happen very often.

How did this happen? It was the result of the process that is community organizing. The role of a group supervisor working with this method, is to show people opportunities, encourage action, cheer, direct, make sure that group members consistently pursue their goals. The most difficult thing for such an animator is not to relieve residents from tasks that need to be done and stem from their ideas. The most important rule that a caregiver should stick to is not to rush the activities and go at the pace of the community.

It's not easy, because raising funds, even the smallest ones, means working on the application, being ready to contact the grantor, being open to planning, promotion and logistical tasks, and at the very end making sure to account for everything. Nevertheless, it turns out that by using the tools of public participation, it is possible to find such people in the city who are able to engage in fundraising and overcome difficulties by performing multi-faceted project tasks.

It must be said that the originators of the picnic "Eco, healthy and film ..." - Malgorzata Wodka and Urszula Kordys (residents of the apartment block no. 105 on Popieluszko Street) supported by Marcin Reman - a Krosno community organizer and Ksenia Bold - an employee of the Regional Center of Cross-border Cultures, did not make their task easy. This is because the entire project was based on great diversity and was spread out over time.

After the success, i.e. the announcement of the results and the news that the application filed by Radosna Polanka was on the podium taking the 1st place, first of all, it was necessary to take care of spreading the information among the residents. For that purpose, a special group was created on Facebook, which today has more than 100 followers and is a source of information about interesting things organized within the green area of the old housing estate in the Polanka district.

SEE THE FACEBOOK GROUP

And it must be admitted that a lot has happened recently in the area of Radosna Polanka. First of all, the open-air event "Eco, healthy and film ...", served to get residents interested in the subject of permaculture and mobilize the community to design a green area and get involved in gardening works. At a low cost, residents managed to bring natural changes to the area around the block of apartments. 

Secondly, the event provided an opportunity to create an intergenerational platform, where the worlds of children, youth and adults intertwined in creative works and useful activities. Residents took part in a multitude of workshops: macramé, carpentry, forestry, cooking or dancing. Two culinary contests were held: for the most beautiful baked goods and the tastiest bread. The organized karaoke was attended by children, teenagers and seniors alike.

Thirdly, there was a unique integration of the local community on this scale, where the flow of people from 11:00 am to 9:00 pm practically did not cease. It turned out that residents from outside the neighbourhood (some were there for the first time) also arrived at the Radosna Polanka area that day. - To our - community organizers' - questions about whether they felt at home here, whether this area could be a common good in a broader context, serving the entire neighbourhood, they answered that there was a good chance that residents from all over would reach here," says Anna Zielinska.