Searching for something to fill up your heart (emphasis on “art”) this Valentine’s Day? Look no further than the Love, Easton project, a public art installation celebrating kindness and creativity.
“I think this is something that we would have been doing anyway,” Sarah Morgan, the Landis Center for Community Engagement program manager, said. When the city of Easton approached the Landis Center about collaborating on the project, Morgan jumped at the opportunity.
“There were so many other [Lafayette] offices that reached out once we started that said, ‘Oh, we were going to do a heart-making event, and what can we do to help?’” Morgan added.
In conjunction with Easton business Mercantile Home, the project’s goal is to create 28,127 hearts of various shapes and sizes and put them on any and all windows and surfaces throughout Easton, leaving them up until March 9.
“One heart for every Easton resident,” Morgan said. “So, we are focusing on getting hearts displayed coming up from downtown, through the arts campus, up Cattell Street and McCartney Street.”
The heart count also includes one for every student at Lafayette.
After student volunteers created hearts on Jan. 29 out of scrap paper, old fliers, construction paper and other materials, they were distributed to the city.
“So, everybody’s coming in and cutting out as many hearts as they are willing to, as many hearts as they’re able to,” Morgan said. “We’re asking everybody to cut out their hearts and put them in groups of 25 so that we know how many we are making and how many we’re distributing to businesses and residents.”
The Interfaith Council also contributed to the Love, Easton project. After hearing of the opportunity from Chaplain Alex Hendrickson, Interfaith fellow Lisa Green ‘24 and other Interfaith Council members made hearts and then donated them to the Landis Center’s portion of the project.
“It’ll just be a cute way to celebrate Valentine’s Day,” Green said.
As the hearts have been installed around Easton, students and staff contributors have seen their work pay off.
“I think that it’s exciting that the students and just the overall Lafayette community is really into this project,” Morgan said. “We’re all just kind of working together.”
Green felt grateful that the Lafayette community could contribute to the project.
“We definitely already have a lot of connections to Easton, but it’s another way to really feel a part of that greater Easton community and all celebrate love together and show up for each other as a community,” Green said.
Bernadette Russo ’24 contributed reporting.
