Free Hugs For a Better Community

Kendra Lichacz was giving away free hugs on Whyte Avenue earlier this week. Photo Supplied.

Kendra is a resident of Fort Saskatchewan, but this past Sunday she was out on Whyte Avenue in Edmonton, giving free hugs to folks in that community. Sound a little different? But for Kendra that was exactly one of her goals — to make a difference, in the lives of complete strangers by giving free hugs to a hundred of them.

OEP asked Kendra to give some examples of who she hugged: “I hugged a blind man who said that I was very beautiful and even though he couldn’t see me, I told him that he was beautiful and he really appreciated that. I hugged a lady that was in a wheel chair who said that she just really needed a hug and would take the hug. I hugged a young girl who said that it made her day; that it was just what she needed to make her day,” explained Kendra, with compassion.

Kendra tells more about the people she hugged: “I hugged a homeless man who asked for money, I said no, but I can give you a free hug, and he said that made his day.”

Not everyone wanted to be hugged, and Kendra excepted their rejections but she made it her goal to go on until she hugged a hundred people.

For Kendra helping others is a huge part of her life. ”Meeting people by chance and just encouraging them. We are all on this journey and we can be of encouragement to one another while we are going through that journey process”, she explained.

OEP asked Kendra if she thought we would have different communities if people did this more often (hugging others): “Absolutely, we would have more openness. This one guy said, wow this is why I like Canada and he accepted the hug,” she said, softly smiling.

Kendra went on to explain that the people she hugged all had different reasons for accepting the hug. “ It was what ever different levels of their journey that they were on or experiencing.” Kendra spoke about how we can connect with others, “Even though we go through our own situations…sitting at home waiting for love to knock on our door when we really we have to go out and give it away ourselves”. she explained.

But Kendra has had a heart for people in her community even as a child. She related a story about a certain disabled boy that she always complimented and talked to and hung out with when she was in grade seven. Then, years later, while she was going to college, she met him again where he was working at Walmart: “He still remembered me and every time he would see me he would pop out of nowhere and come and give me a hug and hang out with me,” she joyfully explained.

This young mother of three explained how she was involved one time in a spa type of “foot washing,” which was a very humbling event for her but one that brought her even more understanding of other people’s journeys: “You realize how calloused these peoples feet are from how hard they’ve been working, and where they’ve been walking and what kind of things they’ve been doing to get there for their feet to be that neglected… while working hard providing for their family and things like that…”

Kendra asks a question: “How often do we live right next door to someone and never take the time to make that connection with them?” Further she adds, “Just going into the community,” we meet people who need to connect: “You see someone crying over a situation… even something simple as to offer a tissue… [you’re] not going there to fix the situation,” she emphasized.

For Kendra it is also a spiritual journey. “We meet people to either encourage us on our journey, or sometimes to deflect our journey or to move us into uncomfortable situations to help us grow out of where we are,” she explained.

It is Kendra’s epiphany that we are all on this journey where we encounter people in our community or other communities on a daily basis “who build us, shape us, mould us and sometimes even stunting us, but through it all we grow.”

“We are built for human connection and relationship…sometimes we are only meant to be the planter, the waterer, or the harvester when helping others,” she suggested. For Kendra it is what we can do for others, be it a tissue, be it a free hug: ”people will remember when we help them.”