Leaving my mark on Boston

So I thought it would be fun to go out with a bang......Boston has meant a lot to me and I was afraid that not everyone in the city knew me yet...(impossible I know) Well with some spare cash in hand and a non-profit company looking for a "face" I got my chance to leave my mark :) I am now the "face" of the Walk for Hunger on May 7!!!! For my local friends they are getting the privilege of seeing my face almost every time they get on the subway (T, for Bostonians) and as they walk through Boston on huge banners attached to the light posts. (an overwhelming thought I know!)

For those of you who think I am serious right now.............I am not..........At least not about the part of purposely getting my face on posters and banners all over the city..... I have my good friend Margaret, who works for Project Bread (who puts on the Walk for Hunger every year, www.projectbread.org) to thank for that! What started out as 3 little thumbnail size pictures in a pamphlett type publication for Project Bread has developed a life of its own! In March she emailed me two sentences "asking" if I was okay with my face being used for a T poster......I wrote back saying "sure... my face looks fat, and I am having a bad hair day", thinking it was a joke. Nope! A week or two later, she told me that I was going up on the T at the end of March and there would be 600 posters!!!! Come the end of March, I started getting emails and phone calls from friends who had started seeing me on the T. It took a while, but one day on the green line I saw the poster myself! (Talk about weird - getting on public transportation and there is your face staring back at you!) I did stand next to the poster until my stop, but sadly no one asked for my autograph :)

When Margaret brought a copy of the poster to Bible Study one night, she had this smile on her face and started the conversation off by saying "Soooo, I don't want to get your hopes up but.......You might be on city-wide banners too!" I stood there in disbelief as she told me that they were voting on a picture of me to put on city banners! They wanted to have 5 different "walk for hunger" posters and I was the last banner photo to be voted on. She told me I had two votes already and she did not know how the last two people had voted but she would let me know. Come the following Thursday she emailed me saying I had "won" and starting after the Boston Marathon I would be on banners hanging from the lamp posts. She told me that my posters would be in Post Office Square. I was okay with that because almost no one I know goes to that area and I could avoid that......wishful thinking!!!! This past Tuesday, I saw the first banners along Charles street between the Commons and Garden. When I got into church I mentioned it to Margaret and she said "Oh, yes and yours are up to......and they are in Government Center" I freaked!!!! She tried to tell me that she was surprised as well! (for those unfamiliar with Boston, Government Center is right near where I live and very close to my church ie...where TONS of people I know are going to be walking around!) After small group I asked Andrew to go on a "walk" with me......About a block away I saw my face!!!!!! The posters were on every lamp posts and they were HUGE (at least to me)

The posters are up until after the walk on May 7th. I find the whole thing very embarrassing...especially when I get emails and my students come running to class saying they sat next to my face on the way to school. But it certainly is a way to leave Boston! Andrew thinks the whole thing is awesome and cannot wait to sit next to me on the T, next to my poster and see if anyone recognizes me! Only a few weeks left and it is all over! I hope that everyone I know in the Boston area will be either volunteer or walk for Project Bread!!