Finding a fantastic home in a great new community such as Bridgewater or Royal Oaks can be an exciting experience for your family. But as exciting as a new home in a new neighborhood is, the location and the floor plan aren’t the only thing that makes a house a home. You won’t spend all of your time inside the walls of your new dream home. Developing a sense of community with those around you is a critical part of feeling “at home” in your new house.

So how can you foster that kind of community in your new Connecticut neighborhood? Here are a few ideas.

• Get The Neighbors Talking: I’m not suggesting that you do something crazy that will have all the tongues in the neighborhood wagging. But a great way to get to know your neighbors and to develop relationships is to actually talk to them. You could start a book club with some of your neighbors and get together to discuss what you’re reading. Or you could host a movie night (and rotate hosting) where you get together watch a film together and then talk about it.

• Organize a Neighborhood Watch Group: It’s nice to know that you’ll have neighbors that are watching your back (and your back door) if you’re away from home. Neighborhood watch groups aren’t just for “problem” neighborhoods. Even the best neighborhoods benefit from having alert neighbors.

• Adopt a Stretch of Highway: Another way to build relationships is to take responsibility for keeping a stretch of road or a park neat and clean. You get to work together and you can also have a sense of pride in making the larger community a better place to live.

• Consider a Community Garden: You might want to organize either a decorative garden or a community vegetable garden. It could even be something that the kids can get involved with. You can harvest the crops for your own use—or donate some of them to a local soup kitchen.

Those are just a few tips for fostering community in your new Connecticut community. Find areas of common interest and take a bit of initiative to do things together. Activities like that help build the kind of relationships that make a neighborhood a real community.