Mother’s Day is a day to remember the sacrifices and devotion that mothers make for their children. It’s a day of gratitude for those countless loads of laundry, the home-cooked meals and so much more.
On Mother’s Day this Sunday, however, mothers, fathers and people all over the world will spend part of that special day giving the world another gift: the gift of peace.
Betsy Marro of Ocean Beach will join thousands of women all over the world to stand silently in the name of peace on
May 13. As part of a worldwide movement to bring about a safer, healthier and more loving future, Marro will stand in Ocean Beach with friends at Sunset Cliffs, between Froude and Guizot streets, near the stained-glass peace sign, she said.
Marro heard about the observances from a friend, who organized a separate event Downtown, Marro said.
Thousands of women, men and children across the globe will stand in silence for five minutes in the name of peace at 1 p.m.
“I think t’s a great way to celebrate Mother’s Day, to make it a better world for our children,” she said.
The grass-roots movement has spread like wildfire, even though the original organizers deliberately kept the event out of the mainstream press so people would “feel like it belonged to them,” said Deb Ballam, a co-founder of www.standingwomen.org.
Ballam helped start the movement in Ohio, where she and her friends became inspired by a short story posted on the organization’s Web site in January.
Although the movement may have been started by women and takes place on Mother’s Day, the observance has grown to encompass more than 400 organizations worldwide ” including men and children, Ballam said.
Visitors to the Web site can choose from 19 languages to register their standing event or find information about one in their city, she said. More than 1,700 events have been registered throughout 60 countries around the world, according to the Web site.
The idea stems from the inspirational short story titled, “The Great Silent Grandmother Gathering.” The story tells of a worldwide peace movement that grew from the humble actions of two elderly ladies who were “standing to save the world.”
Over the course of seven days, these grandmothers caught the attention of the entire world by just standing in the park, silently, for one hour at a time, according to the story’s author, Sharon Mehdi.
The story ” and its message ” spread like wildfire.
Written by Mehdi for her newborn granddaughter in 2005, the story was never supposed to become a published work, she said. As the popularity of the story grew at international peace conferences in New York, Mehdi had no idea her short story would become the basis for a worldwide peace movement, she said.
The touching story inspired people all over the world to stop and think about what kind of world people want to leave behind, according to Marro.
The goal of the effort is to bring people together to show the world how many other people are committed to a peaceful world, Ballam said
“We’re hoping that this is the first step to just bringing the world together as one global village,” Ballam said.