A Greenheart staff member reflects on Peace Day 2022

By: Renee Clarke, Senior Business Development Manager, Greenheart Exchange

The group of Greenheart volunteers.

Penning this on September 21, 2022, the 41^st International Day of Peace; also officially known as World Peace Day as a United Nations-sanctioned holiday, I am honored to contribute my humbled experiences as a volunteer in the 44^th Peace Day Chicago events on September 19, 2022.

Greenheart International embraced the opportunity to volunteer at this amazing day focused on connecting all the world through our actions in Chicago. The 2022 event marked the 44^th anniversary of Peace Day Chicago. Peace Day was officially established in 1981 by the United Nations (UN) General Assembly, but yes, Chicago has been celebrating since 1978! Greenheart has been involved with the Peace School and Peace Day for many years now. While we were involved when it was virtual during the peak of the pandemic, our group of volunteers were excited and honored to supporting this in person this year. We even had a local coordinator, Tammy Zilinski, share information on our Greenheart programming!

The goal to celebrate unity and diversity in our city and world was clearly at the heart of each element of what volunteers, supporters, attendees, and presenters experienced! The speakers, dignitaries, performers, honorary guests, online viewers and passersby each contributed to being united in the message of PEACE! This connection was a natural synergy to Greenheart’s mission of Connecting People and Planet to create Global leaders.

Behind the scenes the thrill-seeking volunteers moved the program along from through staffing community tables, serving as point persons for diverse groups represented, functional set up, and much more.

Here I am with my group of CPS student flag bearers.

My personal role in the event was to help lead a small group of the 196 flags [for each 193 of the UN Member States, UN Flag + Indigenous Unity Flag + Earth Flag] which executed my favorite part of the presentation. The CPS students and Counselor representatives proudly held their flags high during the presentations and symbolically connected to the country for the moment they raised that flag in front of the crowd.

The morning started with such excitement and nervousness of the students…when handing out “name tags” for the flags they would carry, quite a few scrambled to look up a few facts about the respective country. My groups’ part of the alphabet [Liberia to Montenegro] was representative of the overall atmosphere of the event. The students fell back on their pre-event training they received from the Peace School. Those efforts paid off as the young future leaders respected the flags, asked great questions, and embraced their moment on stage as the crowd of close to 1000 which echoed “Peace in….” naming the country of the flag they carried. The diversity of the participants truly reflected the diversity of Chicago.

Speeches naturally echoed the UN’s 2022 International Day of Peace theme of “End racism. Build peace.” Although we had some fun, hectic moments moving 200+ people on and off the stage in Daley Plaza, the amazing Peace School coordination of buses, trainings, labeling of flags and attention to each detail made the celebration appear flawless!

Looking forward to the 45^th celebration in September 2023!!!

The flag ceremony – Peace for the world!