Last year I was able to convince the nearest team to make their boundaries wider in order to include my area as well, and they were able to make that change just couple weeks before the event. (Evidently, adding a team is not permitted but there are no rules about the geographic area covered by existing teams, and project admins can edit theirs.) That might not help you if you don’t have a team anywhere even close to near by.
I like the idea of starting an informal “team” for people without teams. Sounds fun.