It's about Love.
It's about Community.
It's about Healing.
The heart-lifting effort to collect 10,000 photographs of the affectionately-inclined from around the world.
It’s time to celebrate The Smooch! Project Heroes — the generous people who have volunteered and helped move this project forward since its beginning in April 2006. I am sooooo thankful for all the assistance I’ve received over the years. I’m very happy to host a new and oh-so-smoochy annual event, appropriately named The Smooch! Project Gratitude Gathering.
ALL Heroes and a loved one are heartily invited to attend. Just like my Smooch! shoots, this event is FREE, fun, and it won’t hurt a bit. Here’s the details:
The Smooch! Project Gratitude Gathering
Saturday, Dec. 3, 2011, 5-8pm
Eddington’s Restaurant, 5125 Edina Industrial Boulevard, Edina, MN 55439
Food will be served all evening, so guests may arrive at any time, up to 7:30pm
A short welcome & presentation will be offered at 6pm
This is designed to be a heart-warming opportunity for all Smooch! Project Heroes to come together and celebrate this past year and meet other generous people who also support the Smooch! Non-Heroes and Hero-wannabes are most welcome too! There’ll be lots of wonderful food plus a projected display of all the Smooch! Archive photos so far collected for the project. Everyone who has helped move this project forward — all the Heroes — are welcome to bring a loved one to this FREE event. Additional guests are asked to contribute at the door: $10 per person, $30 per family group, children under 5 are free.
No reservations are required but RSVPs are appreciated, to help us plan for the evening. Please send your RSVP email (include the # of people in your party) to: gratitudegathering@thesmoochproject.com
Our menu: All you Can Eat Soup, Salad & Breadsticks
Come celebrate The Smooch! Project with us! This promises to be a wonderful and warm event. I really hope to see you there.
It is our goal to create a 10,000-image archive of people from all over the world demonstrating their affection to someone they love. We do not have any big name backers or corporate sponsors (we’re working on this!) which means our source of revenue is limited to photo sales, sponsored Smooch! shoots . . . and generous people like yourself.
If you believe the work we are doing is worth accomplishing (help lift people’s hearts in challenging situations & encourage them to recognize our similarities rather than our differences), please make a tax deductible donation now. Any amount, no matter how small, would be gratefully accepted.
Thanks so much for your support. May your life be filled with heart-lifting smooches!
Last month, I went to the hospital. Specifically, I went to the Emergency Room of Children’s Hospitals And Clinics of Minnesota – Minneapolis. No, I did not have an emergency health need. I was there to collect photographs. Photos like this one:
Children’s Hospital recently purchased 22 photographs from The Smooch! Project Archive for the express purpose of installing one in every private room within their Emergency Department. I had come to the hospital to document these photos now residing in their new homes. I could not view all the rooms, of course, due to patient privacy. That day, I found eight empty rooms, all from which I collected documentary photographs.
Frankly, I cannot imagine a better place for Smooch! photographs than this. For me, this is a real-life example of how images from the archive are being put to work in the world, helping lift the hearts of people in challenging situations. My happy heart filled to the brim just seeing them there. Then, a surprising and remarkable thing happened. As I was packing up to leave, one of the ER nurses walked up to me. “Thank you for making these,” she said. “Thank you for The Smooch! Project.”
Gah! My already full heart suddenly felt like it would burst in response to that generous gesture. I caught my breath, smiled and thanked her for her kindness. But I knew how these heart-lifting photographs had come into being. I knew who truly deserved her thanks. And I knew exactly what I needed to do next: Share this story with Smooch! supporters.
I am very clear about this: The Smooch! Project and its growing collection of archive photographs would not have been possible without the help and support of the 220+ people — The Smooch! Project Heroes — who have helped me in so many ways, large and small. These are the people who deserve to be thanked for these beautiful photographs. For all you have done to help me move this project forward, that ER nurse — and I — are immensely grateful. From the bottom of my heart, thank you all so very much.
As a token of my sincere appreciation, I hope all of you will be able to attend an event to celebrate the Heroes of The Smooch! Project!
We held our very first thank you party last fall. It felt so appropriate that I decided we should try to hold one every year. Calling all Heroes (and their loved ones) — Please save this date:
November 12, 2011, 5-8pm
The Ivy Building, 2637 27th Ave. S., Suite 207, Mpls, MN 55406
This event will be FREE to all Heroes (plus a loved one). We’ll be offering everyone a hearty fall dinner of soup, salad, & breadsticks. Lots more details to come very soon. Smooches! to all!
Every day I log on and see my sister and me smoochin’. She’s in Minnesota and I’m in Virginia. It helps to close the distance gap between us. Yahooey!
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