Posted by Rebecca Teti in News on Monday, December 01, 2008 10:00 AM
The ad at left is running in and on the buses of my hometown, Washington, D.C.
The American Humanist Association is spending $40,000 on a “good, not god” campaign for Christmas.
JoEllen Murphy, however, is not one to read such stories and tsk-tsk the state of things. Instead, she called the local transit authority and found out what it would cost to run a counter ad campaign. She found that with donated design, it would cost only $14,000.
Then she asked a graphic designer friend to come up with an ad and a web-savvy friend to build a website where she could receive donations. She arranged for donations to be taken through a non-profit corporation so contributions could be tax-deductible.
And now she’s on her way --more than $2000 contributed in the first two days!-- to countering the negative message with a positive one.
I was speaking with JoEllen (full disclosure: she’s a personal friend) and some other friends about her idea, and she didn’t want the tone of her counter-campaign to be simply another battle in the annual “Christmas wars”: a tit-for-tat debate. Instead, she focused on how many people are lonely and isolated during the holidays that stretch from Thanksgiving to New Year’s. What a terrible time to tell people they really are all alone, she thought. Instead, people need to be reminded that they are loved. So her counter-ad (which you can see here --just click on “ to see the ad” in the upper right corner) reads: “Why Believe? Because I created you and I love you, for goodness sake. --God.”
I’m proud of my friend for her positive response to a “downer” story --and especially for not being intimidated by the “$40,000” price-tag which would have made most of us balk, I think. And for conquering her fear of taking on too much: JoEllen is a stay-at-home mom with an infant and toddlers--and her family’s in the middle of a big move, to boot. “I don’t really have time for this,” she says, “but my heart just wouldn’t let me rest. I sense it’s something God is asking of me.”
The American Humanist Association plans similar campaigns in other cities, so I pass the idea along in the hopes that their efforts will be counter-acted in other places, too. (There’s a big AHA billboard on the Jersey Turnpike, you folks in the NJ/NY area.) And, of course, if you want to help us out in Washington, click to donate. Or help spread the word through facebook.
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Filed under ads, christmas wars, evangelism, secularism
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SPECTACULAR ad! Very well done and the message touches the heart. Tell your friend to keep fighting the good fight; we need more brave warriors like her.
super easy to donate too --- they even have a paypal link!
It’s well worth a donation to show how we respond with love to attacks on faith. Thanks for bringing this to our attention.
This is AWESOME!! What a great ad she is doing. I am going to donate today. I’m also going to send out an email to my friends and family and hope that they will too. This is very important. I am in the DC area (30 miles South) so this is close to home for me. Way to go and tell your friend she is in my prayers for courage, patience, and the ability to manage her time for this very special task.
Thank you for posting this! We live in Alexandria, and I’m going to make sure we donate.
Thank you so much for your help! I just got an email from JoEllen saying she’s raised enough for the first part of the campaign --the posters inside city buses.
With a little more help, the large exterior posters can go up too.
As an aspiring graphic designer, I love this story because it shows that we can use whatever our talents and gifts are for the greater good!
Probably not your purpose with this article, but it encourages me nonetheless.
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