One Smile at a Time, Oh Hello Movement Tackles Loneliness

For most people, class assignments are a part of school that they work on, submit and put little thought into once they receive a grade back.  For AnnaClaire Schmiedel, a social good project she developed for her Graphic Design II class turned into a movement with the potential to spark discussion across Liberty’s campus.

 

“We had to pick an issue that we’re passionate about or that we feel could be targeted to a very specific actionable campaign, and I thought about that for a bit and came up with the idea of loneliness on campus, because I feel like on campus it’s very easy to feel alone even when you’re surrounded by people,” Schmiedel said.  “It’s a conversation actually that I had with (my friend Abby Brewer) a couple months ago that sparked the idea and I thought, ‘What can we do to not even just raise awareness about this but start a conversation about it?’”

 

According to Schmiedel, the answer came in the Oh Hello Movement, which seeks to “fight loneliness one ‘Hello!’ at a time.”

 

Schmiedel received the idea for the movement after her friend Brewer texted her one night, asking her how often she felt lonely as a college student and sent her a devotional she had written over Thanksgiving break for a life group she belonged to.

 

“(While talking to the Lord) I kind of realized, thinking about loneliness in particular, that if (loneliness is) something I’ve dealt with in the past, there’s no way I’m the only one,” Brewer, who manages the Oh Hello Movement’s social media, said.  “My gut feeling is that everyone has dealt with it, but no one wants to talk about it because to talk about it is to put yourself out there in a way that you feel like you’ll be sympathetically included the next time.”

 

Inspired by Brewer’s devotional, Schmiedel worked on the project in her class and showed the results to Brewer over dinner on the night of Monday, April 9, of this year. Brewer encouraged her to take the extra step and make the project a reality.

 

“After seeing all of the materials and all of the thought she’d put into it, I was like, ‘You need to do this; you have to do this as a little bit for your project, so why not just go all the way?’” Brewer said.

 

The next day, Schmiedel went around campus and set up the five elements of the movement.  The five elements include stickers that she placed on chairs at the Reber-Thomas Dining Hall reading “I ate here alone today,” challenge cards containing challenges encouraging people to connect with a stranger, hanging mobiles reading “When I feel lonely, I feel this way” with a place for students to write their responses, posters featuring Brewer’s devotional and a “stranger danger” ball which contains challenges, such as fist bumping or having a conversation, that a person can accomplish and then hand to a stranger.

 

Students can find the elements anywhere from the Montview Student Union hallways to bathrooms, but they will be particularly likely to find them at the Reber-Thomas Dining Hall.

 

All of the elements are intended to spark discussion and contemplation about loneliness, a topic relatable to many college students. A 2016 study by the American College Health Association found that more than 60 percent of respondents said they had felt “very lonely” at some point in the past 12 months.

 

“One of the biggest places I targeted was the Rot because, from personal experience, I’ve eaten alone there so many times and I see how students (do the same). I feel like so many people can relate to that,” Schmiedel said.  “I know for myself and so many others, we’ll avoid even eating a meal because we feel lonely, or we’ll eat in our rooms.  So I wanted to start that conversation and raise awareness for that.”

 

Because the decision to officially launch the movement was last-minute, the girls had not originally intended to keep the elements up for a long time.

 

“At the beginning we said we wanted it to be just a 24-hour thing, but we decided to do it so quickly that as soon as people were learning about it we were going to take everything down,” Schmiedel said.  “We thought that was maybe the first exposure people had, so keeping it up for a couple days was good because I think people are starting a conversation about it and people do know about it, which is really good.”

 

Both Schmiedel and Brewer said they have been encouraged to see the response to the movement.

 

“It’s fun to see this explode in a way we weren’t anticipating,” Brewer said.  “(I don’t think) we really had a plan (going into it); we just wanted to shed light on a topic that people don’t generally talk about but everybody deals with.  So hopefully we’ve done that.”

 

More than just shedding a light on loneliness, Schmiedel hopes that students will see God through the movement.

 

“(God) sees people and sees the lonely, and I think if Jesus were walking here right now, he would be doing this every day – walking up to strangers, welcoming them, no matter at what place they are and connecting and really valuing them,” Schmiedel said. “Not just because he sees the need of a friend, but because intrinsically he sees their worth and their story and what’s beautiful about them.”