Sharing with the Crowd
DP Life is a growing community with a message for everyone—the Divine Principle that ties us all together and helps us to create a life we love. Much of the growth in awareness of the DP Life website can be attributed to people who reach out to strangers—whether by speaking to someone beside them on the bus or handing out information cards to a crowd of hundreds.
A story emerges from patriotic Minnesota during the recent Memorial Day weekend, when Nadia Metaweh, 59, and Marika Hoegl, 64, attended SoundSet, a day-long music festival for young people at the Canterbury Park horse racing track in Shakopee, Minnesota. The music at the sold-out event was to finish at 8:30 pm, so Nadia decided to arrive a couple of hours early to give out DP Life postcards and bookmarks before the homeward rush at the end of the event.
“It was awesome. We had such a good time the past two days,” says Nadia. Amid a continuous stream of people leaving the event, Nadia was able to give out around 160 cards in an hour and a half. “It’s great information for all these young people. If they go to the website, first they’ll see the incredible picture of True Parents when they were young. Just below that is a short video, and if they follow the advice on the postcard (which I added myself as a label) that tells them to ‘Be sure to click on the blue “Find Out More” button on the dplife.info website,’ they’ll see the totally heart-warming Three Great Blessings mini slideshows. This is a great anchor for kids, with the sea of misinformation swirling around them every day.”
Then on Memorial Day, Nadia and Marika went to another event: the afternoon game of the Minnesota Twins baseball team. They decided to give out DP Life bookmarks starting an hour before the game ended. Marika stood at a corner near the main exit, facing a steady stream of people leaving an hour before the game ended.
“I had quite a time,” says Marika. “The corner included a trumpet-playing musician and people giving out Red Bull [energy drink]. The musician wasn’t making money, so I suggested he play patriotic tunes, and the money came.”
“I’d bet her few words changed this man’s entire summer,” comments Nadia on this experience, which showed that with a positive motivation and through spontaneous outreach, we can affect people’s lives deeply and in many ways.
An hour after they started, Marika had given away all of her 210 bookmarks. The women’s initiative showed the impact that we can make in people’s lives just by talking to them and opening our hearts. For example, there was a man to whom Marika wanted to give a bookmark, but she didn’t insist after his initial disinterest. He later returned to ask for a bookmark, telling her he realized and was touched by how much she wanted to give the bookmark to him.
Summertime, full of fun events all around the world, is the perfect time to give out bookmarks and postcards. We plan to distribute DP Life cards across the nation on the God’s Hope for America road trip this summer. Check out the attractive bookmarks and postcards at dplife.info/share. There are several designs you can order and have delivered to you before the road trip begins as well as an option for free digital download. They’re all customizable so you can add your address and contact information.
If you have any outreach stories of your own, we would love to hear about them!