Building Community for Summer Residents

With the 2025-2026 school year ending, first-years, continuing, and graduating residents are packing their bags to head home. But what about your summer residents? How can you make the building feel less quiet during the summer months until new and returning students flood the halls again? As a landlord, you have plenty of options to keep the summer fun for everyone around.

Below is a list of activities you can do weekly or monthly to keep the building lively and friendly, because a great way to keep residents around long-term is to build rapport with them.

via Pexels

This list is broken up into four sections: Gathering Data, Weekly Events, Monthly Events, and Final Tips.

Gathering Data

The cornerstone of this is how you engage with your residents. Everyone is different, and while some events can be generalized, you’ll grab more people’s attention if you make them more personalized. To facilitate this, you can:

• Have Mixers: Ideally, do this when everyone starts moving in, so it breaks the ice early and gives you an idea of who everyone is, who their friends are, and what they like to do. But you can do this after graduation season is over, which can be a lot quieter for introverts and allow more activities for extroverts.
• Have Digital Hubs: A great way for residents to get to know each other is by having private groups. Group residents by building or major, which can make it easier to have real-time chat rather than email and to share community events.
• Have Online Polls: In these group chats, you can host polls to get opinions from your residents. This can reduce worry about whether they will show up, since it’s something they chose.

Weekly Events

Weekly events should be implemented later if they are more time-consuming; you can also set up quick, easy events for your residents. You can try:

• BBQ Cookouts (BYOB): If your building has a grill, you could host a BBQ event where students bring their own barbecue while you supply refreshments and tabling for them to sit at.
• Ice Cream Socials: A low-stakes option could be a midday ice cream event. Grab some different flavors, set up the bowls and spoons, and allow your residents to help themselves to the food.
• Movie Nights: This is an easy one to jazz up weekly. It can be anime, rom-com, comedy, horror, or any other genre. The best part is that you can host weekly polls so residents can pick what they want to see.
• Interest Groups: Clubs don’t have to stop once the school year ends. Allow residents to rent out the community space for their clubs and make it open to everyone to join early, before the school year starts.

Monthly Events

As these are more time-consuming than the ones above, you should have them on a specific rotation to prepare in advance. You can try:

• Yoga on the Lawn: This can be student-led, or by you, and in either case, it can attract a bigger crowd, as they can prepare in advance to swing by. You can also customize it by timing (i.e., day or night), location, and type of yoga.
• Silent Disco: If you have enough space, you can host a silent disco-themed event. Set up the headphones and playlists, and let the residents pick the best station, which students can also run.
• Clue Hunts: It’s time to get the mysteries out into the open. Mystery games are an easy way for residents to test their detective skills, from finding treasure to a Whodunit-style event.
• Game Night: In a similar fashion to clue hunts, you can have board-game nights, both physical and digital. Card games are a simple game to pull out, or you can get fancy with a projector and let residents play on their phones to see a leaderboard of who has the most points.

Final Tips

While you can dive into planning your events, here are a few reminders while you plan:

• Make Them Consistent: Whether they are weekly or monthly, they should be on the same day or weekday to avoid confusion. Ex. Pool parties every first Saturday of the month or Ice Cream Socials on the 1^st.
• Encourage Safety: While they are adults, you should still post rules on flyers and reiterate them at the beginning of each event to outline rules for community spaces, how to interact with others, and cleaning policies.
• Maintain Inclusivity: This goes beyond introvert or extrovert-friendly events. If you notice a resident hasn’t attended an event in a while, reach out to ask if they need anything at the event that would make them feel more comfortable attending, such as a dietary need or other interests that weren’t mentioned in the polls.

As more residents attend your events, you’ll feel more confident in what you’re doing to help them feel comfortable in your space. Happy Summer!