Big Sunday Weekend!

What a weekend!

Yesterday, we spent the day with one our newest partners, Big Sunday—the largest volunteer day-of-service in America. This incredible organization mobilized more than 50,000 people of all ages and all backgrounds who worked together at more than 500 different nonprofit sites in more than 100 different towns and cities across Southern California. All this past weekend. Wow!

How did we help? We sent out 7 Community Listeners—Merlin, Amy, Beth, Sally, Sarah, JB, and Owen—out to more than a dozen project sites in the Los Angeles metro area to capture the day on video. We got to meet some great people (including one of the creators of the TV show, “Friends,” Marta Kauffman) and see everyone coming together to serve their community.

Plus, we got a chance to listen to the hopes of Big Sunday volunteers and learn even more about communities across Los Angeles. You’ll get a chance to see those videos next week.

Check out some of our favorite moments from this weekend, and visit the Big Sunday YouTube Channel to see even more!

Meet Christian Assembly!

And now we spread across Los Angeles…

This week, The Hope Chronicles would like to introduce you to Christian Assembly, a beautiful local church in Eagle Rock, California. On April 18th, The Hope Chronicles partnered with the church to train 40+ Community Listeners to listen to their immediate neighbors in Eagle Rock, Pasadena, and Glendale, California. This week, we’ll be sharing the hopes that they collected during one afternoon. Here’s a taste of what you’ll be seeing:

Monday: “That’s a Big Question”
Tuesday: “I Pray Everyday for My Neighbors”
Wednesday: “Get Off The Street and Get a Job”
Thursday: “Earthquakes and Volcanoes”

Then next month, on May 22nd, these new Community Listeners will be leading 200+ young adults in our first Hope Walk event—an afternoon of canvassing neighborhoods all throughout the Los Angeles Metro and discovering what hope looks like for different people in different places. We’ll be posting all of those hopes—through video, audio, and journals—on our site next month. It’ll be a picture of Los Angeles you won’t want to miss!

Giving Hope: Dianne from Starbucks

As we’ve said before—and I don’t think we’ll ever stop—people are just incredible, and it’s beautiful to see hope arise in the most unexpected circumstances.

Yesterday, we had a chance encounter with Dr. Steven Smith, a chiropractor in Pasadena, California, who happens to work with a friend of ours. During our very short meeting, we got to share the vision of The Hope Chronicles—that through the question of hope we discover the heart of our community and the best ways to serve it. We handed him a few stickers, invited him to visit the website, and went on our way.

Less than hour later, we got an email from Dr. Smith. He had read one of our blog posts—an update from Dianne at Starbucks from our last visit with her when she had mentioned that her back and foot had been bothering her (along with a host of other problems). He left this comment:

Please extend an invitation to Dianne to come into my office and I will take a look at her foot problem, no charge.

What a gift!

We spoke with Dianne this evening. She was sitting outside of her Starbucks playing her handheld Yahtzee game. We sat down to talk with her, and she immediately asked us about our day. She says she’s been having a rough few weeks because of allergies and her emphysema (as she continued to smoke her Marlboro Reds—whatever gets you through the day).

Nevertheless, she had a smile on her face.

Then, we told her about Dr. Smith’s offer. Ecstatic. “Thank you, God,” she said as she made the sign of the cross over her chest.

We’ll keep you updated on what happens, but we’d first like to say THANK YOU to Dr. Smith. This is what community looks like. And this is what being a neighbor is all about.

The Power of Story

From Founder and Community Listener Sam Lundquist:

Yesterday, I got a chance to sit down with some folks from StoryWork, an remarkable new project from Volunteers of America Greater Los Angeles. They are using the power of media for change—telling the true and real stories of people from the Los Angeles area and their journeys of struggle and redemption. These are stories of honest change.

Take a look at their mission:

“Storywork” helps us to reach our maximum potential. We see story as food for the mind. We all have learned that physical health is built on good nutrition. We know we should watch what we put into our bodies, but hear little about paying attention to the stories we ingest and the resulting indigestion they can cause.

During our discussion, we all agreed that stories have power. They form us. They embrace us. They transform us. Through raw and honest stories—gathering them, telling them, retelling them—we learn the art of the human condition and can better understand one another.

This is what we do—both at StoryWork and The Hope Chronicles.

Take a look at one of their most recent stories, and meet Andre, a man involved in a drug recovery program on Skid Row in Los Angeles.

Keep an eye out for more stories from StoryWork at VOALA. They’re doing incredible work, and we can’t wait to be a part!

Meet Merlin!

We are pleased to introduce you to one of our newest Community Listeners, Merlin, who has joined us on The Hope Chronicles adventure. This week, we’re featuring the hopes he collected in one of our Hope Journals during his trip to Florida this past March.

Merlin’s been an active member of the Los Angeles community since moving there in 2001. Currently, he is focusing on his campaign for the 28th Congressional seat in the House of Representatives.

Stay tuned tomorrow to hear from Merlin about his experience with The Hope Chronicles. In the meantime, please read his own personal hope below. (Click image to enlarge)

“My hope is to one day be content. This is something that I feel is attainable, but not something I am capable of doing yet. Maybe there is this idea that to be content is to give up for something better. Perhaps this is why I push, pry, and always strive for a change? This will someday change I’m sure, as age sets in. To be content with my failures, accomplishments, income, residence, friends, family, and memories, this is my hope.” – Merlin, 27 – North Hollywood, California

Connect to The Hope Chronicles

The Hope Chronicles is all about connecting communities – and that means we want to connect with you. So, shoot us an email. Catch our media updates. Get to know us all over the web.

	Say hi or get more info. Email hope@thehopechronicles.org.
	Follow the movement on Twitter @hopechronicles.
	Become a Facebook Fan.
	See our latest photos on Flickr.
	Watch our latest videos on Vimeo.

The First Time I Smiled In A Week.

From Community Listener Sam Lundquist:

I never wanted to talk to Bob. In fact, I avoided even getting near him. But sharing an unexpected moment with him wrecked my life, opened me up, and helped me see my neighbors a little more clearly.

.::.

It was October 2009. I had just gotten my new video camera, and I was eager to test it out. What better place to capture some remarkable footage than Downtown LA—an unsavory mix of the über-rich and the poor. Where one block of elite high rises gives way to an alley of panhandlers, makeshift tents, and overflowing shopping carts. It’s a disparity that I don’t think I will ever understand, which is partly why I find it so fascinating.

I began filming. First some shots of cars. Some close-ups of crumpled paper getting teased by the wind. I followed a pigeon as it scuttled across the sidewalk. There’s a strange ecology to the city. Beyond the hustle and bustle of actual people, a lot of things just happen. It’s a very active place, and it’s surprisingly exhilarating to observe, inspect, and record those hidden goings-on.

At this point, “The Hope Chronicles” was a growing idea, but not yet a reality. No conversations had been recorded. No journals had been passed out. No website existed. But on a whim, October 2009 became the first day that the hopes of Los Angeles would be collected. Without even realizing it at the time, we had our first conversations on Hope Street. I talked with a few people—a security guard, someone drinking a smoothie, a “sign spinner”—and got some poignant, relatively interesting responses. Our conversations were short, but I still felt enlightened.

As I made my way down the street, I eventually came across a man begging for money in front of the Sheraton Hotel. This was nothing unusual, although this man was having a hard time getting any response—mainly because of the tube in his neck. As he would approach strangers and begin to speak, his breathing tube would get clogged with mucous-y gunk, which would make him cough and hack this gunk all over people. He could barely talk, he was dirty, and he was sick. No one was responding to him, and frankly I didn’t want to deal with him either. So I walked quickly past.

Update: Diane from Starbucks

A few weeks ago, we introduced you to Diane, a woman we met at a Starbucks in Pasadena, California. You can read more about our meeting with her on our blog. Tonight, I happened to run into her again at that same Starbucks, and I wanted to share a quick update.

Diane walked into Starbucks tonight, and I immediately said, “Hi Diane!” She looked a bit shocked and stunned that I emphatically shouted her name. But nonetheless she was excited to see us. She didn’t remember our names, but she remembered meeting us a few weeks prior. She came over to our table, and we pulled up a chair. She told us that she had spent all night cooking dinner—hamburgers, baked beans, and her famous mac and cheese. She was here tonight to deliver that dinner to a friend, but he didn’t show up.

Diane finally sat down, and I asked her if she had gotten a chance to check out her video online. She said that unfortunately her laptop has been out of commission, and she hasn’t had access to anything. So then we sat down together. I got out my headphones, and we watched her video.

Her first response? “Next time I’m on camera, I gotta wear my false teeth!”

But then she read through the comments that were left for her on the site. She personally thanks everyone for what they’ve said.

Before we got up to leave, Diane also told us that she’s having some problems with her foot. Some pain that she’s been dealing with. She told us before that it’s pretty difficult for her to walk—so keep her in your thoughts and prayers.

This particular Starbucks has become a consistent meeting spot, so I’m fairly certain that we’ll be hearing a lot more from Diane.

Sam Lundquist
Founder and Community Listener

Submit Your Hope for March!

We have had a pretty incredible first month with The Hope Chronicles—listening to stories from all over the world. Hearing and reading deeply personal hopes. Getting to know our neighbors and our communities a little bit better.

We’d like to cap off this great month of conversations by sharing all of the incredible hopes and stories you have submitted online during March.

If you haven’t submitted your hope yet, be sure to do it some time today.

Check back tomorrow to see your hope shared online along with dozens of others!

Up and Down Rodeo…

About two weeks ago, I thought it would be quite an adventure to take The Hope Chronicles to Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills. Our movement has seen hundreds of people on airplanes, dozens of folks in Downtown LA, people down on Skid Row, and even villages in Africa.

But what about the Hollywood movers and shakers in Beverly Hills?

So, off I went. My plan was to go into literally every boutique on the boulevard, one-by-one, asking each employee about their hope. Unfortunately, what I found was that most of the shops had filming restrictions that wouldn’t allow me to use my camera (makes sense seeing as though a gaggle of tourists were milling about outside). However, I found a number of folks thrilled and excited (some taken graciously aback) by the prospect of talking about hope, and willing to chat on-camera.

I talked with about a dozen people—all of which you will see this week in interviews—but among the first was Billie, an employee at a fancy-schmancy jewelry store on Rodeo. I walked into the store, and I immediately told everyone that their store was the absolute friendliest on the entire street. People were smiling, laughing, and talking. Most of the others that I had visited were pretty subdued with either no music or blaring music—nothing in between.

So, I started chatting with the sales floor team, and I invited them to tell me about their hopes. Billie obliged, and our conversation began.

What first struck me about Billie was just how frank she was about her daily morning prayer—something so simple and beautiful, yet so private that most people would never think to bring that up in conversation. Yet, she did, and that prayer was something that has continued to stick with me to this day.

Billie also used several quotes as she described herself and her hope. Here’s the full quote that she left me with at the end of our conversation:

People spend a lifetime searching for happiness; looking for peace. They chase idle dreams, addictions, religions, even other people, hoping to fill the emptiness that plagues them. The irony is the only place they ever needed to search was within.

- Ramona L. Anderson

As I listened, her quotes helped me realize all of the great and unexpected people and places through which hope can be articulated. I mean, Jay-Z isn’t the first person I would expect to inspire me, but as Billie and I talked I could hear that through his words, hope had arisen in her.

That baffles me. Excites me. And makes me wonder where hope will pop up next.

Sam Lundquist
Founder & Community Listener

Genuine and Authentic… And Censored

Our Community Listener Hillary (read her personal hope here) shares about her personal experience as she collected hopes on a road trip from California to Kansas:

I started out ecstatic. I was going on a road trip with a video camera, awesome Hope Chronicles stickers, and Community Listener cards in hand. I was on a mission!

Soon, however, I found myself feeling disappointed and rejected. For every four or so people I asked to share a hope, maybe one would agree. What was it? Was I not cute enough? Not friendly enough? Not clear enough in my description of what The Hope Chronicles was?

It was the people who agreed to share that shed light on a possible reason for the number of declines I received, which were too numerous to use the excuse of camera shyness. There seemed to be some reason or another that motivated them agree to a brief taping, but whatever that reason was, by the time I was ready to hit record, they were saying something along the lines of, “Hmmm, I don’t know what to share. Nothing seems that important. Well, I can’t say that or I’ll appear shallow.”

That seemed to be it!

People either a) don’t even know what they hope for, or b) seemed to have some understanding that their hopes for things like personal health and wealth are shallow and self-centered…and they don’t want to admit that on camera. Believe me, I heard my fair share of hopes that never made it on film. While what you see in the videos is, in fact, genuine and authentic, in many cases, you end up with a censored version of what the individuals are actually willing to share with the world, not the first things that came to mind.

It is not that it is a bad thing to hope for health and wealth, but there also seems to be an instinctual understanding that hope in that alone is insufficient.

So… I ask you as readers of this blog and visitors to this site, if I asked you today about what you hope for, what is it?

Do you hope for something that will fulfill? Do you hope for something that will last? Do you hope for something that will not disappoint? Do you hope for something that you are willing to share with others because you hope it for them, as well?

Hillary Mortenson
Community Listener — Wichita, KS

//

Watch Andrea and Hillary’s Community Listening road trip
Day One, Day Two, Day Three, Day Four, Day Five

The Comfort Zone

Our Community Listener Andrea shares about her personal experience as she collected hopes on a road trip from California to Kansas:

To be honest, it was not easy to step out of my comfort zone. It is strange to think about and admit, but yes, it is out of my comfort zone to turn the to person next to me on a plane or ask the person behind a store counter a personal question. We normally just go about our own lives with little or no concern for those around us. On my part, I think it is half selfishness and half fear of rejection.

But a guy on the plane actually encouraged me, “What is the worst that can happen? They tell you no?”.

As Hillary and I traveled halfway across the country, being a “Community Listener” forced me to stop and notice those around me. Yes, some people did say no, but there were those who were open and willing to share their hopes. I loved getting to hear about peoples lives and hopes. People would share on video or in the journal and sometimes it would also spark further conversation. For example, on a two hour flight I talked to the person next to me for the whole flight. I normally would have barely said hello, but instead we shared our life stories and were an encouragement to one another.

All because I was willing to step out of my comfort zone and ask about his hopes.

Andrea Curl
Community Listener — Los Angeles, CA

Watch Andrea and Hillary’s Community Listening road trip
Day One, Day Two, Day Three, Day Four, Day Five

A Community Listener Roadtrip!

I’d like to introduce you all to Hillary and Andrea, two of our newest Community Listeners, who just completed a cross-country road trip from California to Kansas!

Every day this week, we’ll be sharing a new video of a hope they collected along their journey. Plus, they’ll both be blogging about their personal experiences as Community Listeners, and what they learned about their neighbors.

Also, make sure you take a look at Hillary’s personal hope, which she shared in one of our Hope Journals.

Stay tuned for an incredible week!

Sam Lundquist
Founder and Community Listener

Donny Osmond Smile

I’ve started frequenting a new local Starbucks. Not that this particular Starbucks is actually new, but it’s new to me. When I work so much on my computer, I find that I need to mix up the scenery. The same coffee house or the same cafe, well, they tend to get a little dry. New sights and new sounds help to freshen up my mood and my attitude.

It’s also a great place to meet new neighbors.

This past Tuesday I drove over to Starbucks to meet my friend Owen, who I’m developing another outreach project with. I arrived a bit early, so I took a couple minutes on my laptop to respond to some emails, check the news, and update this site. Nothing too unusual. About ten minutes later, Owen finally arrived (though I told him specifically not to be late!), and we got to catching up.

We had just started talking, when we were quickly, but cordially interrupted by a fellow Starbucks patron.

“Can I just stop y’all for a second? I just want to say that you have a beautiful smile,” I heard.

I looked up, and I met Diane.

“No, really, it’s just beautiful,” she said to me. And our conversation began.

Diane (be sure to watch her Hope Interview if you haven’t), Owen, and I probably talked for at least a half hour, maybe 45 minutes. About everything really. She told us at story about the first person she’d ever loved—a man who stayed by her bed after a horrible accident she’d had. A man who loved her so much he wrote her a beautiful song. A man she loves to this day.

She told us about how she’s moved all over this country, only to discover that Southern California is the only place that feels like home.

She shared her hidden talent—mad drum skills that apparently she’s passed down to her son.

Diane seemed to know everyone at Starbucks. From the manager to the baristas, and nearly every patron who walked through the door, she greeted them with a smile and they followed suit. Smiles all around. She told us she’s there pretty much every night.

She’s become a regular in her own little coffeehouse community.

As time passed, Owen and I had to actually get to work, so our long conversation with Diane had to end. We stumbled through a quick goodbye, and she invited us back to Starbucks anytime.

“Anytime you want, boys. I’m in here every night. Just over here playin’ my Yahtzee game.”

If I could ever model an ideal example of a community listener—someone who’s tapped in to her neighbors—it would be Diane. She knew everything that was going on in all of her friends’ lives. And she had only the best to say about each and every person.

Incredible.

So, Diane walked back to her seat. Of course not before she told me that I have a Donny Osmond smile. Hopefully, I’ll get to see her next week.

by Sam Lundquist
Founder and Community Listener

Photos of Hope

One of our amazingly talented friends, Madison Garcia, snapped a few photos during one of interview days in February. In fact, you might even recognize some of the faces and places from today’s newest video. Madison also provided images for our launch email newsletters and several of the photos throughout the site. Check out the sneak peek below, and be sure to check out the full set. Keep an eye out for more of her work to be featured here. Thank you, Madison!

All images © 2010 Madison Garcia Photography. Visit online at Flickr and Facebook.

What A Week!

It’s the end of our first week!

Thank you to everyone who has made this launch week a brilliant success. Such wonderful comments. Amazing stories. And so many of you who want to get involved as Community Listeners. Thank you so much for joining us on this new journey!

Here’s our latest updates:

Based on your feedback this week, we’re going to be updating the site every weekday with new journal entries, plus we’ll be posting new video interviews on Mondays and Fridays.

Three Community Listeners returned from cross-country road-trips and flights through New York, Canada, and Washington. Some fantastic words and amazing stories. We’ll be sharing their videos and journal entries in the next few weeks.

I also paid a visit this week to Central City Community Outreach, a program located in Skid Row in Los Angeles dedicated to serving the needs of the hundreds of homeless kids in the area. I spent some time with the staff and the kids at the center, and you’ll get to hear their stories next week.

Once again, we can’t thank you enough for visiting this week. Keep spreading the word about The Hope Chronicles, and don’t forget to visit us daily for our latest updates and follow us on Twitter.

Sam Lundquist
Founder and Community Listener

Welcome!

Hi there, and welcome to The Hope Chronicles!
I’m Sam, the founder of The Hope Chronicles. Thank you so very much for visiting our site and joining us on this exciting new adventure.

This is a journey that began more than six years ago as I began to find myself continually engaged in humbling conversations with anyone and everyone around me. Conversations on street corners and in supermarkets. Curbs and classrooms. Conversations just about life—theirs and mine. I began to understand how much that time listening to another person began to change me and opened me up to my neighbors and their lives.

I realized that I needed to find a way to share those experiences with others.

In short, the mission of The Hope Chronicles is to better understand the needs of our communities by asking our neighbors one very simple question: What is your hope?

Think of it as a massive social art project. A new kind of demographic study. A neighborhood journalism effort.

Every day, we have teams of trained Community Listeners engaging strangers, colleagues, friends, and family in conversations that all center around their hope. In fact, we just began traveling across the US, through Europe, and even into eastern Africa. You can read some of their stories on The Hope Chronicles Blog.

How are we doing this? Through one-on-one interviews on the street, workshops with organizations, and art projects for clubs. We even circulate journals on airplanes, trains, and buses and invite people to write or draw anything they want. We want people to be creative and comfortable.

Our team has gathered personal hopes and hopes for families. Hopes for neighborhoods and hopes for humanity. And in that process, every single one of us has been changed.

We’ve listened to incredible stories, heard tragedies and triumphs, and discovered new, simple ways to help our communities. We’ve learned that our neighbors are anyone and everyone around us.

Our hope is that others will do the same.

So, please check back daily for a new story, video interview, journal entry, or art piece that we’ve collected from a neighbor. We hope these will inspire others to bring this project to their communities. Be sure to connect with us online, and if you like what you see, please consider making a donation to the project. We can only continue to do what we do with your continued support.

Thanks again, and stay tuned for more Hope Chronicles!

Sam Lundquist
Founder and Community Listener

Hope Bridges Gaps.

JB Coles, one of our Community Listeners, tells us about his experience passing around a Hope Journal on two flights:

“What do you hope for?”

“Isn’t that a sort of personal question to ask?” was the response I received from most of my friends.

It is, and I’m pretty sure that’s the point. Whether it’s your next paycheck, performance on an upcoming exam, or your spiritual salvation, hope is the rudder of our lives whether we acknowledge it or not. It gives life motivation, picks us up from failures, and urges us to continue. Hope is personal in that it gives each of us a meaning to keep going, but personal doesn’t need to mean private. How tragic is it that something so inspirational finds itself internalized so often? Imagine how transforming it could be if intimate communication was reignited on the basis of hope. How beautiful would it be if, instead of staying selfishly silent, our hopes and the encouragement they give us were shared with others to transform them as well? That’s what I hoped for when I heard about The Hope Chronicles.

Through my participation with The Hope Chronicles, I was excited to see how transforming shared hopes could be. Even from my first conversation, it was obvious that hope bridges gaps between people. I sat on a flight awkwardly holding the Hope Journal in my hands next to a woman, Nancy, who I would never normally have spoken with. She was busy, engaged in a good book, and I could empathize. I am as guilty as the next person for ignoring the people living life around me. My typical routine would have involved exactly the same thing except with ear plugs to aid my isolation. Now I assumed a new role, ready to break the silence and invade her peace.  I was also preparing for rejection. I introduced myself, held out the journal and briefly explained the goal of the project. Before I could finish, Nancy’s eyes grew wide with excitement and took on a beautiful gleam. She closed the book and we started talking about hope and the conversation progressed from there until landing. It took a different turn than I’m used to. No weather, no sports, no movies. We already had the assurance that we shared one thing in common, hope. This was eye opening for me. Instead of relying on shallow conversation to avoid rejection and embarrassment, our conversation was founded on a shared acknowledgement of each other’s necessity of hope. This same footing gave us a different perspective on each other and made us vulnerable in a new way. Nancy’s case wasn’t special either; the same thing happened many times I approached people about the project. Somehow, hope brought us out of our shells and into meaningful communication.

While my eyes were opened to the effect that shared hopes had through my own conversations, I could also hear the effects in conversations all around the plane. As the journal made its way to the back of the plane, I heard many people explaining the project to their neighbors and smiled. It was amazing to hear people present the project to each other and begin to discuss what their hopes were. With each new presenter, the project took on a new, personal slant.  Some people thought it was a wonderful idea and shared with each other excitedly about how such a project could make an incredible impact on people’s lives. Some shared their skepticism through sarcastic jokes. Some people shrugged it off and fell asleep. Regardless of the reaction, people were stirred to talking and discussing the idea of hope. It was a beautiful harmony of voices, discussing the things most dear to their hearts in the safety of one-on-one conversation.

Through my experience with The Hope Chronicles I have witnessed hope’s incredible ability to connect people. While by no means a magical word that instantly breaks down barriers, hope is a deeply personal thing that we can all relate to. As I read through the journal my heart was moved by the vulnerability that it represented.  The hopes and experiences that people were willing to share was incredible. While hope may be a personal matter, the amazing effect that it can have when shared is undeniable. I witnessed conversations start between perfect strangers, enjoyed sharing personal conversation with others, and saw emotions expressed that I could never have expected, all in response to the simple question: “What do you hope for?”

JB Coles
Community Listener

Are You Traveling?

If you’ll be traveling on a plane, train, or a bus (or some mode of transportation we haven’t thought of), we would love for you to become a Community Listener and ‘collect hope’ as you travel.

With our Hope Journals, we invite passengers to take a page to write or draw whatever it is they hope for. Then, pass it to person next to them. When the books are complete, we’ll have you send them back to us, and we’ll scan and upload their content to our website to share with the world.

We’ve discovered that this “random act of writing” allows people to express themselves in a very new way. Plus, it’s a fun and unexpected way to start conversations.

If you’re interested in becoming a Community Listener, email us at hope@thehopechronicles.org.

Thank you!

The Hope Chronicles Team
hope@thehopechronicles.org