Children's Cloth

The Children's Cloth of Many Colors

 

 
Directions for Participating in the Children's Cloth of Many Colors

Children's Cloth of Many Colors Gallery

Background and Examples

For me, the first moment of the Children’s Cloth of Many Colors happened on September 20, 2000. I was orchestrating the event on Capitol Hill where the Cloth of Many Colors was being shown, on the lawn in front of the Capitol. It was the millennium, and this mile-long peace cloth, the vision of Peace Troubadour James Twyman had just come from its showing at the UN the prior day.  

We were in the middle of the setup of the program: I was standing there, facing the Capitol, juggling the setup of the speakers in my mind; Jimmy, Congressman Conyers, Linda Grover, myself … Suddenly and softly, I felt a little hand take mine. Before I looked down, I remember thinking, “this feels like a little angel.”

Perhaps it was.  Eight-year old Brynn Stalvey, whom I had never met, was to play a significant part in the coming events. On that day, I met her mother, Linda, and her godmother, Dawn Ferguson, who came to Washington from Hawaii knowing that they were to be a part of our Pentagon event two days later.

I tell people that at that time I was “beating people off with a stick” who wanted to be a part of our Pentagon event. There were only 75 seats in the Secretary of Army’s conference room, where we would be holding our ceremony to dedicate a peace pole for the Pentagon chapel. The seats were all taken; people were on the waiting list. But I know that for some reason, this child and the two women needed to be there.

The feeling was correct. Brynn announced at that Pentagon peace ceremony that she wanted there to be a new version of the Cloth of Many Colors – one made only by children. It would contain the childrens’ visions and pictures of peace – and perhaps most importantly, their feelings of what “peace on earth” would be like for them.

Brynn Stalvey at Pentagon Ceremony
September 22, 2000

She offered to have her third grade at Bonnie Brae Elementary School in Fairfax, VA start the quilt. And so they did, the following month. Eight sections from that school were made, being presented to the Fairfax County School Board the following March. The school board loved the project so much that they did a short documentary on it. Other major TV network covered the children’s wishes and thoughts for peace. We've had many media articles since that time on the program.

A delegation from Japan came to visit the children: bringing a section from their children, in time for the Cherry Blossom parade. They brought a peace pole for the school and gifts for the American children. Our peacemaker friend Hagit Ra’anan came to visit from Israel, bringing sections from Israeli and Palestinian children. The Bonnie Brae children wrote to both the Palestinian and the Japanese children, incorporating elements from geography, civics, math, penmanship and other aspects into their curricula.

Bonnie Brae Children and a Grandmother
Create a Section of the
Children's Cloth of Many Colors

Since that time, the program has spread. The quilt is now over 1/3 mile long. Thousands of children, from 25 countries and 22 US states, have participated. On occasion, whole schools have contributed sections. Children from camps, scouts, Boys and Girls clubs, embassies, neighborhoods, homeless shelters and orphanages have participated … all kinds of children. And whatever country they came from, whatever situation they were in, their pictures all had similarities – little smiling faces, holding balloons. Birds, nature, shining suns.   There are many beautiful, heartwarming stories that have taken place with the children’s participation.

Perhaps most importantly, a kind of magic – with little miracles, happens around the Cloth. The feelings of sweetness, purity, innocence, fun – all of these things sort of spill out from it, wherever it goes. The adults start feeling this, and something within them opens up. Often, they begin feeling like children again.

We noticed at one diplomatic event that when the children were sitting on the floor, drawing their pictures, their parents sat down on the floor beside them to join them – again, it didn’t matter whether their countries were at odds with each other. Not only were the pictures the same, but “where the children go, the adults followed” …. It went beyond words: to the heart. Barriers fell.

A more public “miracle” happened on March 25, 2007, when we showed the entire Cloth on the West Lawn of the US Capitol.  We laid out the quilt in circles.  “Peace Troubadour” James Twyman was on a peace tour, carrying with him the prayers for peace of thousands of people.  It was a powerful focus for peace. 

Jimmy suggested that we reconfigure the quilt in the form of the peace symbol.  We did.  For about 15 minutes, we joined hands around the quilt, singing and praying for peace.  I remember that we asked a few passers-by to join us so that we would have enough people to complete the circle.

Then, we packed it up and took it back to its storage place. 

The next day, I received a call from the Capitol Police (the permit was in my name.)  They wanted to know what we had done regarding the peace symbol.  When I asked why, they said, “because we notice that the grass is growing greener in the form of the peace symbol.”  They insisted that we had used fertilizer.  Of course, we hadn’t.  It’s just not our style.  The grass remained greener in that configuration for about two weeks. Even the Wall Street Journal noticed! http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2007/03/29/growing-the-peace-movement/

The entire Children’s Cloth of Many Colors has now been shown three times on Capitol Hill, (Sept. 11, 2002, April 17, 2004, and March 25, 2007), once on Sept. 19th 2010 at the Lincoln Memorial, and once at Chautauqua Institution, (July 4, 2004).

It’s a big undertaking to show it all. We’ve shown parts of it at the United Nations International Conference on Children and the Environment in July 2004, where the Communities of Peace program was represented. It’s been partially shown at the State Department on Earth Day 2004, and a section presented to Mrs. Kofi Annan on September 13, 2001, for the Interfaith Blessing of the Work of the UN (it was particularly needed, two days after September 11th). 

A section from the Children’s Cloth
is presented to Mrs. Kofi Annan
at the Interfaith Blessing of the United Nations
  September 13, 2001.

Most recently, the entire quilt was shown on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial for the International Day of Peace, on September 19, 2010.

Commemorating the International Day of Peace
 at the Lincoln Memorial September 19, 2010.

The initial section from Bonnie Brae was presented by Brynn Stalvey to Congressman Dennis Kucinich the morning that the Department of Peace resolution was first initiated on July ll, 2001.  That section hung in Congressman Kucinich’s office for a few years,, as a symbol of children’s wishes for a peaceful world. 

First Presentation of Congressional Resolution
to Establish a U.S. Department of Peace

Sections surrounded the Peace Forums that we hosted in Washington DC during the year between 9/11/01 and 9/2002. Everyone could feel the love of the children coming from the sections; it created a sweet softness in the room.

Children from the Gustavus Adolphus Children’s Home outside Jamestown, NY (where my mother grew up) have made two sections.  This is intended to be the beginning of a sub-section of children from orphanages. 

"My Mother"
Quilt honoring Gretchen Park Fahey,
who grew up in the Gustavus Adolphus Children’s Home.

We’ve been invited to attend the international meeting for Departments and Ministries of Peace in Capetown, South Africa in October 2011.   The Children’s Cloth of Many Colors will be featured at the meeting, highlighting sections from children in African orphanages.

The children would like to see the quilt go on tour. We would, too.