Our Template

The Communities of Peace template is comprised of the following five modules.

1. Declaration of Intent (Month 1) and A Mayoral Proclamation (Month 12) will declare the City a “Community of Peace”.

2. The Children’s Cloth of Many Colors is a quilt comprised of yard-square sections made by children in the Communities of Peace. The Cloth is currently about 1/3 mile in length. Many sections contain precious pieces of cloth, such as the children’s first baby blankets, sports team shirts and a grandmother’s handkerchief. A special ingredient is the infusion of the children’s feelings of what “peace on earth” will be like for them.

The quilt was conceived in September of 2000 at a peace ceremony at the Pentagon in the Secretary of the Army’s Conference Room. It has been displayed in the nation’s capital on Capitol Hill and at the State Department. It has also been presented at a United Nations ceremony, featured at Chautauqua Institution on July 4th, and recently shown at the United Nations International Conference on Children and the Environment. At that conference, the participating children recommended that Communities of Peace be started everywhere.

3. The Emissary of Peace Program is a five-part manifestation of peace which includes:
1. Exploration of Peace Within
2. Outreach with the Children’s Cloth of Many Colors
3. Demonstration(s) of “Love for the Earth”
4. Grassroots peace project(s) created and implemented by children and adults, and
5. Expression(s) of peace through the Fine Arts

4. The Peace Forums are creative community discussions designed as “what if” scenarios in a Town Hall format. Taking the resolve forward to be a Community of Peace, participants explore how to mutually design and create this whole new level for their community. Volunteerism is emphasized, with a focus on fully expressing one’s positive creative nature. Appreciation and preservation of the beauty of the environment is very much a part of this process, with “environment” defined as not only nature, but as the way people treat each other.

5. The Annual Peace In Action Celebration, often held on the child-inspired Global Family Day, January lst, is a community Gala, to which leaders and citizens are invited to honor their own commitment to and participation in making the city a Community of Peace. Awards for citizens modeling Peace in Action will be featured.

We recommend that for the first year, the following be completed:
• At least four sections of #2 be completed, from four different areas (church, school, community organizations, one representing the city itself.
• At least two models of #3 be completed, from two different areas.
• At least two models of #4 completed.
• One #5 completed, at the end of the year.

Additionally, we recommend that an interfaith approach be taken to achieve the above goals.