Ulysses and Chrysalinn Archie unload a car-full of food from several grocery stores at least two days a week at Peace Park, a small greenspace with a unique mosaic, wooden archway at the top of a dead-end street in their Southwest Baltimore community.

The Archies, who know what it feels like to need extra support, offer the free food to anyone in their Collins Streamside Community, a block-long community along Collins Avenue in the Irvington neighborhood. It is one of the ways they and other residents have worked to create a unique supportive culture, unlike many other areas in the city. It’s a desire that’s organic, but the avenues for connecting are by design.

For 30 years, Collins Streamside has been building this intentional community. It’s a place where children can play in almost anyone’s yard and are taken care of by a village of neighbors. When kids need rides to school, someone in the neighborhood will take them. When vacant houses on the block went up for auction, residents combined funds to buy them. And there are frequent impromptu family dinner potlucks, where neighbors will bring side dishes to go with a pot of spaghetti or other main dish. The dinners are a place to connect and maybe meet someone new. Neighbors also share resources like information about current events, transportation, and a space to talk about religious views.

Much of this work makes use of the Peace Park, a central space that was once the site of an abandoned house and junkyard before community pushback and clean-ups. Now, along with the free food, there’s a free summer camp run entirely by volunteers, a Little Free Library, community events, and raised garden plots where anyone can come for fresh produce, and more.

Michael Sarbanes and his late wife, Jill Wrigley, were one of the first households to bring the idea to build an intentional community on Collins Avenue. They knew they wanted to live in a place that was undivided by income, religion, jobs or race — somewhere that didn’t contribute to Baltimore’s segregation.

But they also knew that that kind of neighborhood, the one that checked all their boxes, didn’t exist. So they sought to create one for more than just themselves.

“A neighborhood is something you build, not a commodity you purchase,” Sarbanes said.

The couple started by taking neighborhood kids to Sunday school and making their home a welcoming place where they could come for a piece of fresh fruit. Their efforts, though genuine, were exhausting, and they soon felt burnt out. They realized their vision needed other like-minded people, so they started networking and recruiting others to the neighborhood.

It’s not easy to find the Collins Streamside Community. An apartment complex sits at the top of the street, and single-family homes and a duplex line sides of the avenue as it leads downhill. The backyards of some residents are wooded areas with a stream from which Michael Sarbanes said they’ve pulled shopping carts, washers and dryers and other junk. When quiet enough, the water can be heard softly sloshing against the rocks. Sarbanes often tells young children that the assortment of misshaped rocks sticking out of the stream is a sleeping dragon.

When it will awake, no one knows.

Each house in Collins Streamside has a story.

Yvonne McNair, originally from New York, takes advantage of the surrounding nature most mornings, walking a daily five miles through the neighborhood and the adjacent Loudon Park Cemetery. McNair has lived in the neighborhood since 2017 when Wrigley recommended she move since she was already bringing her daughter there daily. Their daughters, who are now in college, were childhood friends. McNair feels like she found her group of “weird” people who care about each other and look out for one another. She also feels free to be herself.

“You’re allowed to be you. You’re allowed to be as quirky as you want to be without judgment,” McNair said.

If Magnolia, a small black and white goat, and her baby Lily Ashanti are grazing the yellow and brown leaves in the forestry that wraps around the community, chances are they’re following Ulysses. His goats, chickens and rabbits make up an urban homestead that provides educational opportunities and compost for neighbors and other local farmers. At least one day a week, weather permitting, folks in the neighborhood can go on a goat walk with Ulysses, who believes in the restorative qualities of nature.

“We’re living the dream,” Ulysses said.

In many ways, kids are the center of the neighborhood. Maybe it’s the tire swing, basketball court, bench and fire pit used to make S’mores in Sarbanes’ backyard, right next to the stream, that brings them outside. Or the bouncy trampoline in the backyard of another home. If it’s hot and they need some water, many kids don’t hesitate to knock on a door or two, Chrysalinn said.

Residents are also aware that life is not so utopian outside their community and don’t ignore the spotty, but apparent crime that unfolds nearby. Jeff Ross, who lives on Collins Avenue, said there’s a “community built within that reality” which keeps them from living inside a secluded bubble. Chrysalinn, who has six sons, would describe raising children in the area as “both challenging and beautiful,” describing sometimes hearing gunfire and a once random car chase through part of the woods.

Ross and Suzanne Fontanensi introduced the idea of a Peace Camp four years ago that’s welcoming of all children in the neighborhood. There’s tutoring, double dutch, jewelry making, breakfast, lunch and more that neighbors have built out and participated in each year.

“Every kid should feel special like they’re worthy of good things,” Fontanensi said.

Cynthia Wagner and Stephen Miller, who teach biology at University of Maryland, Baltimore County, opened up the outpost in the back of their home to host some Peace Camp activities and the community dinners. Miller has fond memories of neighbors over the years enjoying the nice weather and gathering and talking in their backyard as children played and ran around.

Some of the kids might be too young to remember, but adults recall why they made their way to the neighborhood, and often it leads back to Wrigley, Sarbanes’s wife. She died from cancer in 2016, but subtle reminders of her still remain. Sarbanes built a small fountain outside his house when he was initially grieving, a tree in a small grove in the woods is dedicated to her, as is an annual cleanup, and a photo or framed words from her poetry can be found in several households.

But if there’s anything to know about new neighbors or the community’s history, most fingers point to Troy Gayleard. His grandmother has lived in the community since 1972, and he is constantly picking up trash and doing his rounds to make sure people are doing alright. A few swipes of his iPad will bring up photos of old trolleys that transported people in the cemetery and archived photos of how the block once looked.

“You need to know history or you’ll be doomed to repeat it,” said Gayleard, who lives with his grandmother.

And he’s quick to share lore that Irvington is considered Skulltown because of the three nearby cemeteries: Loudon Park Cemetery, New Cathedral Cemetery and Mount Olivet Cemetery.

On a very windy afternoon, the neighborhood was about as quiet as those cemeteries. Loaves of sourdough bread, yogurt and whole-wheat tortillas were still up for grabs in the Peace Park, a sign that maybe people have embraced the goal to take only what one needs and save enough for others.

It’s just one of the mantras people have built into the community.

“If you’re intentional, proactive and caring over a long period of time in a consistent way, you can really grow a community. It can become the place you really want to live,” Sarbanes said.