After last month’s postcard project, a good friend approached me to create another postcard as a culmination of their community project in Wolverhampton.
Residents of a couple of streets in Wolverhampton were invited to add a heart to a frame set out in the street, to say “thank you” to everyone who’s work and contribution has been helping people through the pandemic. Despite lousy weather, a love-filled selection was collected from neighbours.
I have to say what makes this project is the wonderful hearts that people have created by people in he community, and given, to say thank you.
I have always struggled with the cultural concept of our ‘hearts’. Our culture flippantly uses the heart symbol daily, and the heart can have a saccharine sentimental significance.
But the notion of our hearts being ‘the core of us’, is a definition that holds true with me. We cannot deny that we have ‘a core’, an essence. That thing that brings a tear, a chill, a smile. We do have hearts.
The A5 cards I’ve designed using photos of the gifted hearts, will be sent out to local schools, shops, GPs, care homes and the like to say ‘thank you’.
The cards read: “Thank you to everyone keeping us healthy, safe, supplied, connected, educated and cared for. To say thank you for all you have done and are doing to help us through this pandemic. We made these hearts for you.”
This project was created and organised by Rachel Parkinson, as part of a wider initiative by the Wolverhampton and Shrewsbury District of the Methodist Church, encouraging people to bless their communities around Valentine’s Day. You can see more about this project here: God is With Us: Valentines Project
Jules P Richards 