Grant Applicant: Love Beyond Walls

The feature below is brought to you by Love Beyond Walls, an organization that is in the running to receive a See Beautiful Grant. For more information about all of our giving initiatives, please click here. 

To learn more about Love Beyond Walls, please visit their website: here.

To see the Voiceless Documentary, please click the link below:
https://vimeo.com/222830083
To see the Voiceless Documentary Trailer, please click the link below:
https://vimeo.com/186256582
 To see the First Screening Recap, please click the link below. 
https://vimeo.com/231732059
Love Beyond Walls was created as a hopeful response to a society building higher and higher walls. We are an organization that focuses on telling the stories of and working with those wrestling with poverty and homelessness. As an organization, we believe that tangible love overcomes these barriers.

 Walls exist more than ever in our current society. We looked around and saw nations building higher and higher barriers between one another. These walls separated people in different classes, sexes, races, and everything in between. We are an organization that is not afraid to address these barriers and we are committed to breaking them down.

We believe in action over words and making service a part of our daily lives.

One of the most distinguishable characteristics about our organization is our focus on telling the stories of the unseen and building relationships with people as a way of walking with them to get out of poverty and homelessness. We are committed to people that the world passes by because we believe the people struggling with poverty and sleeping on the streets have lives and stories that are just as valuable as ours.

We exist to provide dignity to the homeless and poor by providing a voice, visibility, shelter, community, and grooming and support services to achieve self-sufficiency.

Since our beginning, we have been committed to telling stories in ways that are both empowering to those we serve and also educational for those who are unaware of what people dealing with poverty face day to day.

Currently, our political and social climate has pointed to that fact that we need a moral centering and healing. More and more, we are starting to see issues and walls being formed surrounding the issues of race and poverty.

We recently launched a campaign called MAP18 (March Against Poverty 2018) to bring attention to both poverty and racial injustice and reconciliation in our country.

The 386 mile journey beginning March 3rd and ended on April 4th commemorates Dr. King’s legacy and brings awareness to the fight against systemic poverty and racial injustice.  

Before Dr. King was killed, he planned his next initiative, “The Poor People’s Campaign.” Dr. King believed that the next step towards equality was to eradicate a system that even today keeps members of society enslaved to poverty.

This march was a testament to the legacy of Dr. King and to shed light on the millions of people across the nation from all walks of life and nationalities who experience the harsh realities of homelessness and poverty.

My personal connection to the story starts with my desire to bridge the gap between groups that are divided.

I am a social activist, and work with many race groups, and clearly see the distance between many different groups of people. Some people don't realize that racism still exists; through my journey from Atlanta to Memphis I experienced the good, the bad and the ugly.  
In fact, I wrote a blog on my journey to Memphis that documented the threats I received, number of times the police were called on me, and the encounters I had while attempting to advocate on behalf of the poor. Here are some of those words:

“For instance, yesterday I was walking with my friends and had three experiences that made my flesh crawl and eyes water. The first experience was when a young guy threatened to hit my friend and I. Harvey and I were walking on the side of the road with a good shoulder between us  and the actual road. We thought we were safe because we were not in the road. We were feeling good, and then I saw a car coming at us. Yes. A car intentionally coming at us.The driver was not texting and driving, and he was not distracted. I know this because he looked me dead in my eyes as he pointed the moving vehicle towards us. As he got closer, at the last minute he swerved the car and flipped us the finger and sped off. What would make this guy do that? Racism? Hate? I don’t know but it made me feel unwanted as I walked through a city where people were looking at us strange and dealing with tons of poverty. As soon as we got past that incident, we encountered another incident. I’ll never forget 10 minutes later two guys in a red pick up truck (with a confederate flag on the bumper) pulled up beside Harvey and I and stared us down and pulled off fast and yelled out the window, “Be safe out here.” After the second incident, I then noticed I wasn’t wanted in the city. But, I continued to walk. Why? Because although I was being treated wrong I still saw their poverty. I saw that many of people that were being mean towards us also were in poverty.”

I applied for the See Beautiful grant for to create a film that will highlight our need to bring peace and healing to a nation divided racially and economically.  

This docs-series will explore conversations from many different people that will give insights into the tension, but also talk about ways in which the gap between groups can be closed through unity.  

It is our hope to create a film that not only creates conversation, but brings unity to different race groups. The name of the film is called, “Divided We Stand: A Docu-Series on Racial Justice & Reconciliation”.

It has been said that a house divided against itself cannot stand. What, then, can be said of the racial tension in The United States of America? America has a deep and dark history with racial tension, and still continues to be divided amidst  the current political and cultural climate.

What happens if the country continues down a divided path? The house eventually crumbles. History reveals that oppression has always been the dividing force that still separates many today. 

The See Beautiful grant will help us with some special equipment and help us tell this story in a way that could possibly bring people together from all walks of life in love. In the same way that MLK Jr. dreamed about it while here. We are aiming to create more beautiful in the world.

For me, I measure success through conversations, connectivity, and diverse community involvement. Since I lead an organization that leverages community service as a reconciler between races, I desire to see this film inspire more people to build intentional relationships with people opposite of them as a way of joining forces to do justice work in the community.

We currently have a digital following of over 30K followers. We plan to use local media, the power of social media via Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and YouTube. Additionally, our last film (Voiceless) was aired on the AIB Network and they have a audience of 2 million people.
Lastly, we plan on doing screenings. We completed over 52 screenings of our last film with an average audience of 300-400 people in attendance at each screening.

​Will you help us bring love into the world through truth, love, and conversation?

Written by ​Terence Lester, Founder of Love Beyond Walls

Edited by Rachel McLeroy for See Beautiful