The University launched the “Brown Loves Providence” campaign on Saturday as a symbol of thanks to local businesses and Providence community members for their support after the Dec. 13 mass shooting.
The campaign aims to encourage the Brown community to support businesses and organizations across Providence. Suggested methods of support include making posts about local businesses on social media and hanging Brown Loves Providence posters. The University will also be selling Brown Loves Providence merchandise for the duration of the campaign, and all proceeds will be put toward the community, according to the initiative’s website.
Individuals who provide proof of purchase at local businesses or donations to local nonprofit organizations can also be entered in a raffle for a $100 restaurant gift card or a $100 donation to a community-based nonprofit of their choice, according to the campaign’s website.
Inspired in part by posters reading “Providence Loves Brown” placed around campus after Dec. 13, the Brown Loves Providence campaign aims to “flip the script,” Mary Jo Callan, the vice president for community engagement and executive director of the Swearer Center, told The Herald. She hopes the campaign will demonstrate appreciation for how the community “showed their love for us on and after the shooting.”
We “have endless respect and love for the city, for what it managed to make not happen and how much it supported us in that evening and the weeks that follow,” Matthew Guterl, vice president for diversity and inclusion, said in an interview with The Herald.
“It’s good for the (Brown) community to acknowledge a debt and to pay that debt back and to do so publicly and with force,” Guterl added.
According to Callan, the planning of the campaign involved “tying together” ideas that the community generated naturally.
The initiative has engaged over 80 student ambassadors, faculty and staff, who will work to spread awareness of the campaign. Tables have been set up around campus, where people can take stickers and posters and write notes of appreciation for local businesses.
“Providence showed the Brown community a lot of love and support after last semester’s tragedy,” Brown Loves Providence student ambassador Sophia Knaggs ’27 wrote in an email to The Herald. “I think perhaps by returning this generosity it can help us continue to heal.”
Another student ambassador, Mia Santomassimo ’29, who is a photographer for The Herald, wrote that she joined the campaign staff because she “wanted to show (her) appreciation for the city.”
“I’m constantly getting coffee with friends or just going to local cafes, like Brown Bee Coffee and Caffè Nero, to study,” Santomassimo wrote. “I’m very excited to support shopping local and write thank-you cards to businesses.”
Jessica Lee ’28, who is not affiliated with the campaign, told The Herald she chose to submit a note to Caffè Nero — where she sheltered on Dec. 13 — through an online form after she learned of the campaign through a Today@Brown announcement. Her note is now featured on Brown’s Instagram page.
“I had been wanting to reach out to the people at Caffè Nero and had been debating sending a card,” Lee said. “I didn’t really know what would even be the best way to thank them.”
“I thought that this was an opportunity that fell right into my hands to be able to thank them in some way,” she added.
The campaign seems like a “logical and restorative next step in our community,” Callan said.
Even if “all we do is change everyone’s angle of view and make them see the city a little differently,” the campaign will have been meaningful, Guterl added.
The campaign also seeks to help organizations such as Brown University Health and the Nonviolence Institute, a Providence-based organization that provides support to victims of violence in the community.
Carrie Bridges, vice president of community health at BUH, told The Herald she learned about the Brown Loves Providence campaign last week. Bridges added that she was deeply proud of her colleagues and the work of BUH following Dec. 13.
“I was able to witness just how incredibly professional, how incredibly caring and how incredibly thorough they were in trying to think through what every individual’s and every family’s needs would be,” Bridges said.
Lisa Pina-Warren, executive director of the Nonviolence Institute, said she thinks that the Brown Loves Providence campaign is “absolutely amazing.”
Pina-Warren, who attended Hope High School and has spent large amounts of time near Brown’s campus, added that the difficult circumstances have “bridged a gap and (have) brought so many of us together.”
Ava Stryker-Robbins is a sophomore and a Metro editor at The Herald.
Ian Ritter is a university news and science & research editor, covering graduate schools and students. He is a junior concentrating in chemistry. When he isn’t at The Herald or exploding lab experiments, you can find him playing the clarinet or watching the Mets.
