ENGAGEMENT IDEAS & ACTIVITIES

Storefront Window Art

This is another fun way to engage the community in learning and practicing the Choose Love Formula, and a great way to engage local businesses in the process, too!

THE PITCH TO LOCAL SHOPS: By allowing their storefront window to be painted as part of the Choose Love Community Engagement effort, local businesses will not only be publicly acknowledging their support for a kinder, safer more loving community but will also drive attention/ foot traffic into their stores.

In fact, we created a “Local Business Edition” of the Choose Love for Communities™ program just for them that includes ideas for incorporating the practices of the Choose Love Formula™ into their everyday operations, as well. Feel free to share this PDF with local store owners.

THE ACTIVITY: Divide your group into “teams,” and assign each team a storefront window to design and paint, as well as one of the Choose Love Formula™ values (COURAGE, GRATITUDE, FORGIVENESS or COMPASSION-IN-ACTION.) Encourage them to represent their Choose Love Formula™ value in whatever creative way they wish on their window, and plan a contest around the event (perhaps a gift basket of items from participating shops could be the prize?)

Give the community a week or two to review and “vote” on which window they believe to be best, and find a way to label the winning window (gigantic blue ribbon?) to attract even more attention to the shop.

Chalk / Sidewalk Art

Whether on the sidewalks downtown in your community, the streets where you live or the blacktop outside your school, chalk designs are another easy, fun and inexpensive way to inspire both the chalk artists and passers-by with images and messages depicting the Choose Love Formula™.

Perhaps draw a game of COURAGE + GRATITUDE + FORGIVENESS + COMPASSION-IN-ACTION hopscotch, with each row of square(s) being a Formula value; as they hop onto each square, the player can shout out an example of what that formula value means, and when they complete their turn they can be encouraged to tell the next person in line something kind.

Group 1: Individuals and Families

The first part of the Choose Love Challenge is focused on encouraging individuals to perform an action based on the Formula value for that week.

They begin the week by learning about the Formula value by watching the coordinating Choose Love Lesson, which you (as the campaign organizer) would share according to one of the platforms we discuss here. They would then be instructed to perform an act associated with that value, that you would suggest.

For example, because it is the kickoff week and to encourage raising awareness about the Challenge initiative, the first week (Week 1: COURAGE) could encourage people to “step outside of their comfort zone” by doing something nice for a neighbor they don’t know very well.

That “thing” could be to “love bomb” 3 neighbors by anonymously leaving a Choose Love care package or pre-designed note on their doorstep, and invite them to “pass it on” by repeating the activity for 3 other neighbors.

You could make this template available for download on the same platform you used to share the lesson, invite people to print 9 copies of it, color in 3 (fun for younger kids to participate) and affix them to 3 neighbors’ doors, including the 3 extra sheets for each one to pass along. If your platform is a landing page with a unique URL, you can write the URL onto the love bomb printouts so the next group of people can download more copies.

No matter what the care package is, the lesson in this activity should be that stepping out of one’s comfort zone can be scary or uncomfortable, but very rewarding. If you can set it up so that it becomes a “chain” of action, it will also help spread awareness about your Choose Love initiative!

Idea for Challenge Week 2 (Gratitude:) Create a gigantic Community Gratitude Chain.

• In a central public location (or participating local business or organization with large common area,) set up:
  • table
  • containers of construction paper, cut into thick long strips that can be joined together like chain links
  • markers
  • glue, glitter, feathers, buttons, and/or other decorations
• Throughout the course of the Challenge week, community members are invited to come (and bring family) to write something they are grateful for on a strip, decorate it and glue it to the Gratitude Chain.
• At the end of the Challenge Week, plan to display the community’s Gigantic Gratitude Chain in a public location that shows how impressive the chain is; invite people to take a selfie in front of the chain and post to social media with hashtag #ChooseLoveChallenge; perhaps get a community leader to pose for a photo and/or comment on the end result in the local paper.

Idea for Challenge Week 3 (Forgiveness:) Create a gigantic Community Waste Basket/ Recycling Bin.

• In a central public location (or participating local business or organization with large common area,) set up:
  • table
  • containers of paper
  • pens
  • a steamer trunk or gigantic waste basket
• Throughout the course of the week, community members are invited to come (and bring family) to write down feelings they’d like to “let go of” related to a painful situation or circumstance, crumple up the paper into a ball and toss it into the receptacle; repeating as often as they’d like to repeat this forgiveness process and help fill up the container
• At the end of the Challenge Week, repeat selfies in front of overflowing receptacle of Forgiveness; perhaps light it on fire (!) for effect (with the oversight, of course, of local fire fighters)

Idea for Challenge Week 4 (Compassion-In-Action:) Design Positive Expressions Posters and Hold Up In Busy Intersections/ Make Someone’s Day.

This is an amazing feel-good activity that can be performed in groups (i.e. neighborhoods, led by Choose Love Captains) at different times and locations throughout the course of the week. Each group will design inspirational posters with words of kindness and encouragement that are large enough for passing cars to easily read and spend one hour holding up the posters in designated intersections for exposure to as many passers-by as possible.

This can also be accomplished on busy pedestrian sidewalks and street corners.

Group 2: Local Businesses

The role of local businesses in the Choose Love Challenge is very simple but extremely powerful in terms of generating awareness and action around Choosing Love.

Community members are invited to download and print a “Challenge Book,” from your online platform, which they would then bring into participating local businesses with them on specific weeks during the Challenge.

Each participating business will be assigned one week of the Challenge. During that week, community members will be encouraged to visit their shop and perform a task related to the Formula value for that week.

For example, during COURAGE week, people would need to show a Brave Pose to the store owner or employee, and in return the store owner or employee would give them a sticker to put into their Challenge Book.

Why not also turn this into a social media opportunity for the local businesses and ask people to share their pics of Brave Pose at the business with a special hashtag?!

During GRATTUDE week, the customer could make an affirmation statement to the store owner; FORGIVENESS week, they could “cut the cord” (i.e. a piece of yarn or something related to the store,) and COMPASSION-IN-ACTION they could simply share an example of a way they stepped outside of their own “busyness” to help someone else. You get the idea … very simple.

When their Challenge Book has all 4 stickers in it, the community member signs the pledge on the back and takes a picture of their book to submit it to the designated location for prize drawing.