Sharing the Stories of the Kings Community with TKC Letters Project
Illustration by Matthew Peterson
Human stories have always been powerful. That’s why we erect the statues of our heroes and why we read biographies and believe in religions. The recounting of one’s experiences consistently has powerful effects on others. When we recognize that others are similar to us, we are more inclined to love them as we love ourselves. Because of this, a desire to help someone starts with a recognition of common humanity.
The notion of storytelling as an impetus for connection is at the core of the TKC Letters Project. The project was born after a meal with Aidan Ableson, a sophomore in the House of C.S. Lewis, at Shake Shack on Feb. 15.
“You know, I have this idea,” I said. “I’m worried it might be kind of tacky and do nothing, so I’m not sure if it’s worth pursuing, but I was wondering if it might be cool to get a bunch of people to write letters talking about all the good things that King’s has done in their lives.”
Fundamentally, the TKC Letters Project exists to share the stories of the individuals who make up the King’s community. We are doing this to rejoice in how God has worked, and people have grown while also creating a resource that King’s can share with potential donors to display how their giving can affect the lives of actual humans. We are doing this by having people write letters—preferably handwritten letters—which we will upload to our website, tkclettersproject.com. Submit the letters through this form.
Ableson said he thought it was a great idea and that this was the time to try something just because it might be “tacky” or “do nothing.” The severely impractical and overcomplicated suggestion that I was going to follow up with was, “Yeah, you’re right, so then we can collect all these letters and send them out sporadically to donors by snail mail.” Before I could get it out (thankfully), Aidan said, “Yeah, and we could upload them to a website we’ll build.”
At this point, I realized that talking to Ableson was a good move. If I was the guy who had the idea and Aidan was the guy who grounded the idea by making it reasonable, there was only one guy left to recruit: Eli Johnson, a freshman in the House of C.S. Lewis, the guy who could execute the idea by actually making the website.
Over this past weekend of Feb. 17-19, We’ve been drafting statements, building the website, designing graphics, finalizing our system and spreading the word.
Our goal is to have as many letters as possible and to keep adding the letters to the site, regardless of what happens with King’s. However, given the time-sensitive financial state of the school and the fact that we want this to be used as a method of encouraging donations, we appreciate all letters as soon as possible. We would love to have at least 200 letters by Saturday, Feb. 25. If you have a positive story to tell about King’s, we would really appreciate your help.
Matthew Peterson is the Podcast Editor for the Empire State Tribune Television. He is a freshman at The King's College studying Journalism, Culture and Society.