“Try to be rainbows in someone’s cloud.”
– Maya Angelou
Milwaukee’s Katrina Lord considers herself a cheerful person.
“I think my hobby alone kind of shows that,” Lord said.
Her hobby is a project called “Milwaukee Love Letters.” She creates and decorates handwritten postcards with positive, uplifting messages to leave around the city. She says the idea came from a similar project she saw on Instagram created by someone in New York.
“What I do is find quotes that inspire me,” Lord said. “Positive quotes, sometimes silly quotes. I like those too.”
“If you want more kindness in the world, put some there.”
– Zero Dean
The quotes usually come from Lord’s book collection, or the occasional song lyric. She writes each quote on a separate postcard using a marker or pen, then decorates it with a colorful heart-shaped sticker or two. She writes an anonymous message on the back from “MKELoveLetter” and then seals it in an envelope to stash somewhere around Milwaukee.
“I leave the love letters around Little Free Libraries as I’m walking my dog around town. We go on lots of walks,” Lord said.
She also frequently leaves the letters at coffee shops or Milwaukee Public Market. She posts pictures of the letters on her Instagram page.
“Sometimes after people find the letters, they’ll write on the ‘Comments’ section that they found it, or they’ll send me a direct message on Instagram, just letting me know that it brightened their day,” Lord said.
“Our fingerprints don’t fade from the lives we touch.”
-Judy Blume
Lord says the goal is simply: to spread cheer to random strangers who happen to find the cards.
“It’s just a fun hobby. Simple as that,” Lord said. “If I can make one person smile, maybe they can make more people smile and I think that in itself is priceless.”
