“Justice at its best is love correcting everything that stands against love.”

~Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Springfield, MA – MLK Jr. Family Services is proud to partner with Springfield City Library and Springfield Cultural Partnership to bring the Be Love movement to Springfield in the form of a community puzzle to expand this social justice art engagement project as a part of The King Center’s growing national movement, ‘Be Love’.  Be Love Day, set for July 12, 2024 at 11am at the MLK Jr. Family Services Martin Luther King Jr. Mural, bringing together the project partners, local artists and city leaders will commemorate the official launch of this summer-long, city-wide project.

“MLK Day 2024 was a “Day On” at the MassMutual Center where more than 2,300 families, friends and neighbors gathered to honor the legacy of Dr. King.  It was there that we launched a public engagement social justice art movement to center the power of love: to unite humanity, cultivate true peace, and create Dr. King’s Beloved Community across our region, to ensure we actively embrace Kingian Nonviolence throughout the year,” shares Shannon M. Rudder, CEO of MLK Jr. Family Services.

What is Be Love? Be Love is a growing movement of courageous acts to achieve justice, which we define based and has a three-pronged call to action:  Be educated on what it means to Be Love; Build inward character and outward community and; Be a part of creating a more just, humane, equitable and peaceful world, using the principles and steps of Kingian Nonviolence (Nonviolence365).

 Through arts and culture, we will demonstrate the power of community to develop our movement, one artist at a time. Participants are invited to participate either individually or communally by decorating puzzle pieces.

Puzzle piece packets will be made available at all Springfield City Library locations, local youth serving organizations, and can be made available upon request to info@mlkjrfs.org.  Seize the opportunity to craft in communion with others or to take them home and return them by August 29, 2024. This project stretches across our great region; community members of all ages will be invited to create a puzzle piece with a personal reflection of what it means to “Be Love.”

You will be also invited to take the Be Love Pledge and encouraged to share it with your friends and family. At its core, the Be Love Pledge asks you to “make the personal choice to do something to demonstrate love in action.”

Decorated puzzle pieces will be collected by August 29, 2024 and assembled to be featured at MLK Day set for January 20, 2025.

For event updates please follow mlkjrfamilyservices.org/community-be-love and for further inquiries, please reach out to Claudia Pazmany at cpazmany@mlkjrfs.org.