This Sunday, May 5th, The Hope Chronicles will be at the Grove in LA from 9 AM – 1 PM for one of our most exciting events ever! We’ve partnered with Big Sunday on the biggest day of community service in America for our first ever Hope Balloon exchange.

The day will start with dozens of hopes from LA written on multi-colored balloons at our booth in front of Zara. Every visitor who comes by will be invited to write their hope on a balloon. Then, they’ll leave their balloon with us and select someone else’s Hope Balloon to take home with them.

It’s a “Take a Hope, Leave a Hope!” exchange, and it’s our fun way of giving our visitors a chance to listen to their neighbors and starting important conversations.

There will be dozens of other projects down there, too—from canned food drives to putting together care packages for LA’s low-income families. It’s an entire morning and afternoon filled with community-building activities!

So, come on down, bring some friends, have lunch at the Farmer’s Market, and be a part of spreading compassion through Los Angeles. Can’t wait to see you there.

- Sam Lundquist
Founder and Community Listener

Another quick update… We just got done with our second day in the villa putting everything in place for our gallery opening on Sunday. Today, we continued stringing leaves for our Hope Tree and installed a graffiti wall that was made by our Los Angeles students. We also got all of our student panels and photos from the printer! These panels help tell the story of our students’ experience with the project and some of the hopes they heard last year. Finally, we began installing some seating areas for our visitors to sit and contemplate hopes, as well as write their own hope to share with the community. All in all, another GREAT day.

Here are some quick photos (click to enlarge):

One more day of prep, and we open on Sunday! The home stretch is here!

Super quick update today. This morning, the students and I moved all of our materials from Occimiano Middle School into the 16th-century villa that will be our gallery’s home. Over the next few days, we’ll be working in their to get all of the materials in their final place before Sunday’s opening ceremony. We’re also developing some simple interactive elements that invite our guests to share their hopes inside of the gallery.

On the artistic side of things, we finished the Hope Chronicles sign that the students and our amazing art teacher put together. Plus, we completed the art panels that feature more than 50 hopes from students from several other local schools. We’ve been lucky to have collaborated not only with the Middle School, but the Primary and High Schools, too!

The villa itself was designed by the classroom here to be very natural and authentic to the Occimiano region. Because we’re in a rural area, we’re using hay bales all around the space to keep it feeling like home.

I snapped a few photos today, but we were so busy that I didn’t have time to get too many. Much more to come tomorrow. (Click below to enlarge)

That should do it! Just three days until [e]speranza opens to the public!

- Sam Lundquist
Founder, The Hope Chronicles

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-Sam Lundquist
Founder, The Hope Chronicles

I’m finally here!!!! Occimiano, Italy! I honestly can’t believe it. After more than a year of planning, fundraising, and awesome creative work with my Italian teacher/student team, our Hope Gallery opens this coming Sunday. And I’m here helping to put all of the final pieces into place.

So quick rewind… What are we doing exactly? Since Fall 2012, students here in Italy have been asking hundreds of people in their communities about their deepest hopes for themselves, their friends, family, and the world. At the same time, students in South LA were doing the same. Fast forward to now, and we’re creating a Hope Gallery that showcases all those hopes—LA and Italy, side-by-side through student art—so the Italian communities here can understand and feel how what hope is like in two different corners of the world.

The team here has really been working hard over the last few weeks. Middle school students are sketching, drawing, and painting. High school students have been creating digital works of art. Flyers and brochures are going up in cafés and markets in the surrounding towns. We’ve been making signage. Here’s a quick sneak peek at some of the amazing work that’s being done.

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BUT there’s a lot more to do. Every day this week, I’ll be sharing photos and hopefully some videos to show you how the gallery is coming along. Be sure to check here and on our Facebook page for the latest. Then, on Sunday, we’ll have some great updates from our Dedication Ceremony, and you’ll get to see the final product.

This is truly a dream come true! I never could have imagined a year ago that The Hope Chronicles would have made it all the way to a little village in Italy.

-Sam Lundquist
Founder, The Hope Chronicles

Since October, a group of students at Fusion Academy in Pasadena have been asking dozens upon dozens of their local neighbors “What do you hope for?” This month, they’ll share those hopes with you and immerse you in the same hope-filled, compassion-building journey that they experienced.

Join us on December 20th from 5:30-7:00 PM as we unveil Fusion Academy’s incredible Hope Garden, a student-designed art installation featuring real, raw, unedited hopes from people all over the Pasadena area.

The garden will showcase:
- Dozens of hand-painted garden stones, each with a single, important Pasadena hope.
- Video and media featuring one-on-one hope conversations with Pasadena residents who share their hopes and their stories.
- Beautiful photography that captures the hopes of Pasadena through still images.
- A chance to meet the incredible Fusion student and staff team that spent months listening to their community.
- An opportunity to hear even more about what The Hope Chronicles has in store.

Fusion Academy Pasadena is located at 825 Colorado Boulevard #118  Los Angeles, CA 90041

So mark your calendar! Save the date! This will be a wonderful community event filled with family, friends, and neighbors from the Pasadena area. You won’t want to miss it.

I hope you can join us!

-Sam Lundquist and the Fusion Academy Team

-Noah, 40 from “Here”