Meet Heather Deal

Meet Board Member Heather Deal, who moved to Waco from New York City a few years ago and joined the Board 2-3 months after she moved here, when Dr. Scales asked her if she wanted to join the community.

Ms. Deal works very closely with Ms. De Laurell at Good Neighbor House, coordinating the work and development of Resident Volunteers. She leads weekly meetings with the Resident Volunteers, some of which are based on common readings and often include focusing on spirituality. 

She said that she and Ms. De Laurell are the liaisons between the Resident Volunteers and the rest of the board members. She loves how each of the Resident Volunteers has a different and unique personality but develop into members of a close community in their time living at Good Neighbor House. She is passionate about developing and sustaining communities and the strength that comes from people who gather and share the common goal of wanting to learn from each other.

To Ms. Deal, being a Good Neighbor means caring for others around you. In response to who qualifies as a “neighbor,” she says that everyone should be our neighbors. We need to care about everyone around us as well as ourselves and figure out what they’re going through and what their strengths are. Ms. Deal said this is more important than ever because she’s seen an intense sense of individualism emerge during the pandemic. More and more people are starting to think that if something isn’t important/doesn’t bother “me” then it doesn’t matter to anyone else. She said that we’re all on this planet doing it together, and we need to figure out how to work together for us all to live our best lives.

I think Ms. Deal’s comment that we all live on this planet together so we should learn to accommodate each other is so important as more barriers separate people. This is why spaces like Good Neighbor House are important: in a time when some people are only looking for differences in others, places like Good Neighbor House encourage people to share their experiences with each other and see themselves as part of a community.