How This Started

Following the results of the 2016 U.S. presidential election, the Rev. Ashley Horan started a movement to draw loving and inclusive messages in sidewalk chalk around her neighborhood. Messages like “Everyone Welcome,” “We love immigrants,” “Black lives will always matter,” and “Ninguna persona es ilegal” (“No one is illegal”) popped up and were shared online with the hashtag #NeighborhoodLoveNotes. Many are memorialized in the Neighborhood Love Notes Facebook Group.

Local news, the Pioneer Press wrote about how the practice went “viral” in their article Post-election ‘love notes’ in chalk appearing around Twin Cities where they quoted Horan:

“The day after the election I was feeling very upset. I knew how afraid and hurting everybody was in my community, which is full of queer folks and black and brown folks and immigrants. I needed to do something.” The idea was picked up by UU congregations and other communities across the country, with some churches handing out chalk at their worship services.

Faith Development Goals

Justice making, spiritual development, multigenerational experiences, identity formation, living faith, beloved community, pastoral care

How Is This Whole Church RE

Our values here are manifested as community making, public witness, joyful connections, sacred stories and faithful conversations.

Creating these “love notes” together is an important part of faith development: participants encourage each other to think deeply about what our faith values are and how they call us to act in this world. Then, translating that understanding into public facing messages and making it happen is a powerful identity formation experience for younger and older UUs alike. Taking pictures helps participants reflect upon the project in small groups later afterward, and help[s bring the experience full circle, by including them in storytelling: in the newsletter, from the pulpit, or in a special display in a common area, like a bulletin board. Having participants personally share about their experience of the event in a worship service or other community gathering integrates the faith learning for all ages.

Specifically engaging multi-age groups is crucial. Children may have opportunities within their families to have these conversations, yet elders have many fewer opportunities to share across the generations, and are often moved deeply by the clarity and confidence with which our youngest UUs “occupy their faith”. In turn, children feel more connected and a greater sense of belonging in the community when they are co-learners with older UUs, especially those they don’t already know!
NOTE: Consider how this event might be paired with Signs of Our Faith: Rituals of Public Witness and Celebration.

Participants

Engage a diverse group of people to do this together, perhaps after a worship service on Sunday! A wide variety of ages can enjoy drawing and writing supportive messages on sidewalks and walls. Some physical limitations require creative solutions. (Example: someone who cannot get down on the ground can chalk a sign to be hung, or can have their message be chalked by a younger person.)
Whole Church RE encourages connecting the dots between RE and the committees and ministries of the church whose efforts and interests intersect with a given project. Collaborating with social justice and building and grounds folks, for example, will engage more adults and is more likely to result in shared expectations and mutual buy-in from those stakeholders.

Materials

Lots of sidewalk chalk in a wide variety of colors. An expected span of dry weather is best, so perhaps a rain date might be pre-scheduled. You might also organize an in-house session first to brainstorm images and text.

Some thoughts from Jean Helms/Ashley Horan about what to write: “Instead of aspirational ‘love will win out someday’ or ‘we’re all one, let’s get united’ messages, which might ring hollow or erase the specific and painful experiences of particular groups, try for things that positively affirm and embrace people right here, right now, in this world as it is, with all its violence and hatred. Or messages that reflect a commitment from you to show up and do your best to build relationships and protect the people in your community.” Samples might include:

• Nobody is illegal/nadie es ilegal
• None of us are free until all of us are free
• Black Lives will ALWAYS matter
• Solidarity with______________
• ____________ neighbors, YOU make America great!
• No matter what they say, remember: you are loved beyond belief
• We support our LGBTQ neighbors

Setting

Your congregation or a public place with chalkable surfaces where the messages will be seen and appreciated. Some use their playground, walls, parking lot, etc.

More of the Story

Jean Helms and Ashley Horan write: “When you choose a location to chalk, think about it carefully. DO NOT chalk without permission in front of the houses or businesses or religious institutions of groups that are already being targeted for harassment and violence. If you want to write messages to those groups and you’re not a part of them, ask permission, and be ready to respect a “no” if you get it.

Try to choose a spot where lots of folks will see it–a bus stop, a public school, a park, a hospital, a busy street corner. Some places, it’s illegal to chalk on public sidewalks, so find out what the laws are in your community, and then assess whether it’s strategic for you to act within or outside of those laws. If you want to not risk any illegal activity, ask permission from sympathetic business owners or other powers-that-be if you can write messages in front of their buildings.”

Tips from the Field

In the Neighborhood Love Notes Facebook Group, Jean Helms shares the following tips (shared with permission):

1. Chalking is not enough, and love is not–it turns out–all we need. For those of you for whom this kind of public act already feels risky, sit with that discomfort and let it propel you to do something else that feels risky, but that also fosters systemic change. Get involved in the city council and mayoral races in your city; attend a protest or a march organized by people most directly impacted by the issues; make significant financial contributions to grassroots organizations that can’t get big donor funding because they’re led by queer folks and people of color; engage your family you want to unfriend on Facebook in conversations about racism and Islamophobia and sexism and homo/transphobia even when it feels uncomfortable. Develop spiritual practices and community relationships that make it possible for you to withstand the discomfort and anxiety that will inevitably come, and that fill you up when the world breaks your heart and everything spills out.
2. Invite people to go with you. Use this as an opportunity to deepen relationships with your neighbors and friends, and spend your time while chalking, giving each other courage to make a plan for the NEXT thing you’ll do together to dismantle oppression and halt violence against targeted communities.
3. Some places, it’s illegal to chalk on public sidewalks, so find out what the laws are in your community, and then assess whether it’s strategic for you to act within or outside of those laws. If you want to not risk any illegal activity, ask permission from sympathetic business owners or other powers-that-be if you can write messages in front of their buildings. If you’re willing to risk breaking the law, do it strategically: which businesses are funding the Dakota Access Pipeline, making campaign contributions to candidates that support deportation and increased militarized policing, failing to support and protect women and LGBTQIA people, etc.? They would be great sites for pointed, specific signs of affirmation that would serve the dual purpose of messing with the business owners’ minds AND loving up the communities they’re targeting!
4. Be as specific as you can with your messaging. Instead of aspirational “love will win out someday” or “we’re all one, let’s get united” messages, which might ring hollow or erase the specific and painful experiences of particular groups, try for things that positively affirm and embrace people right here, right now, in this world as it is, with all its violence and hatred. Or messages that reflect a commitment from you to show up and do your best to build relationships and protect the people in your community.