Share Your Story
Every Soul Box Has a Story
Your participation in The Soul Box Project increases our collective power to aid healing while awakening understanding, empathy, and solidarity among more Americans. Sharing your story extends this positive impact while honoring the memories of loved ones impacted by gunfire. Tell us how The Soul Box Project has influenced you.
We will review all stories prior to posting. The Soul Box Project reserves the right to make final decisions regarding the publication or removal of any submission in accordance with the story submission guidelines.
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“All those Boxes are put together with love.” Darlene Cain, of Baltimore, Maryland, shares her story and the impact of folding Soul Boxes for her son lost in a police shooting. WATCH
Lynda King, of Vancouver Washington, shares the story of losing her beloved to gunfire and how The Soul Box Project has helped her honor him while healing herself. WATCH
“I lost my brother, my best friend, to gun violence.” Melissa Dion-Beckett felt she was directed toward the Soul Box Project, when she “stumbled across” the exhibit on the NationalMall. [Read More | Close]
Volunteers and Donors
“My husband and I learned to fold boxes and then involved my father…With mild dementia, he was able to follow along… knowing that he was doing something important.”
[Read More | Close]“My husband and I learned to fold boxes and then involved my father…With mild dementia, he was able to follow along… knowing that he was doing something important. Some of us have been lucky enough not to be touched by the epidemic of gunfire in our nation. But we can still build sympathy for the losses suffered by so many families across the country. I do that by thinking of those I have lost in other ways.
A few weeks after the Las Vegas shooting we lost our 94-year-old mother. By the spring we found The Soul Box Project at the March for Our Lives in Portland, OR. My husband and I learned to fold boxes and then involved my father. It was an excellent activity for him. With mild dementia, he was able to follow along with folding knowing that he was doing something important. It made him feel useful. It was a wonderful experience to do them with him. One I will never forget.
We lost dad 1 year later. He probably contributed about 20 boxes to the project during that year. Although both of my parents lived long, good lives, it was hard to let them go. It made our hearts ache. Part of the mission statement of Soul Boxes is to use the materials you have at hand as much as possible. With the permission of my siblings, I have converted the index, cover, and maps of my parents’ world atlas into 90 boxes. Life-long supporters of social justice, we all know they would like this.
It is a great sense of healing for me to be able to include my parents in the project.”
My 8-year-old granddaughter watched me make some boxes. And the next time I saw her she had made 8 or 9 all on her own at home. She said, “I put a little of my soul in each one.” — Gail, Portland, OR