Choosing Care: Reflections from the Walk for Peace

For Something: Lessons from the Walk for Peace

January has been loud - literally and figuratively. For Something: Lessons from the Walk for Peace
Heavy. Unfair. Unrelenting.
Full of noise, urgency, and grief layered on top of uncertainty. 

All of that deserves to be named. And still, I keep returning to something quieter.

Not the crowd photos — though they still take my breath away — but the smaller, almost invisible moments that made up the Walk for Peace.

Be The Ones served as the official South Carolina Community Partner for the Walk for Peace led by the monks of Huong Dao Vipassana Bhavana Center. The Walk for Peace is a contemplative journey rooted in mindfulness, compassion, and community, traveling from Texas to Washington, DC to foster peace, reflection, and connection. 

To understand what that meant, let’s rewind.

Just three days before the monks entered South Carolina, we got a call from our partners in Georgia, who had just coordinated five Peace Gatherings and walk logistics across their state. The monks were heading our way and it was clear there was a need for an on-the-ground community partner - someone who knew South Carolina deeply and had real relationships across it. 

We knew immediately that this would be a massive undertaking for our small but mighty team. It meant pausing other plans and programs. But we also knew this was an opportunity we couldn’t turn away from - an invitation to practice the care that sits at the heart of our work.  

We understood - and honored - the responsibility we were stepping into: to host and care for the monks, and just as importantly, a responsibility to our neighbors and community members - the communities we organize with and build power alongside long after the walk passed through our state.

Over the next five days, we called on our partners who might be able to help. Word spread fast. Our phones were ringing off the hook. 

South Carolina is deeply rooted in community, but what unfolded still caught us off guard. Churches, local leaders, organizations, medical professionals, community members - people offering food, housing, transportation, medical care, anything they could. The scale of generosity was overwhelming. It was unprecedented. 

On the morning of January 10th, we helped organize a private peace gathering with 65 local leaders, members of interfaith coalition, creating space for reflection, relationship-building, and shared conversation about peace, care, and collective responsibility.

From there, departing the Brookland United Methodist Church, the monks were greeted by thousands of community members lining the streets. Together, participants walked in solidarity across the Gervais Street Bridge toward downtown Columbia and the South Carolina State House, where a public Peace Gathering was held.   

At the State House, the monks were formally welcomed on behalf of Be The Ones and honored with a City of Columbia Proclamation presented by Mayor Daniel Rickenmann, as well as a State of South Carolina Proclamation presented by Senator Deon Tedder (District 42, Charleston & Dorchester Counties), who also announced January 10, 2026 as “Walk for Peace Day” - a South Carolina state holiday. 

Behind the scenes, something equally remarkable unfolded.

A seamless, grassroots coordination effort between county sheriffs, state and local law enforcement talking to one another, exchanging contacts, sharing lessons learned in real time.  Figuring out together how to keep the monks safe, how to protect the public gathering, and how to coordinate across county lines as the walk moved throughout the state. 

We’ve been told that this level of coordination is unprecedented - and now offers a model for what’s possible when collaboration, trust, and shared responsibility are centered.

While being the official state partner might have started as logistics, it quickly became something much deeper. It became a living example of what collective care actually looks like.

What unfolded across the Midlands wasn’t just a gathering of more than 20,000 people. It was a felt reminder that care doesn’t need to be forced or manufactured. When people are invited into something rooted in compassion and purpose, they rise to it.

We watched people across faiths, backgrounds, and life experiences choose peace together. Not symbolically or abstractly, but in real, embodied ways. Through attention, patience, generosity, and softness toward one another.

In a moment when so much of our public life feels loud, reactive, and defined by opposition, this felt like an exhale - even a calling inward. 

So much civic action, especially right now, is focused on what we’re fighting against. Necessary, yes. That work matters, yes. But it can’t be the only way. 

The Walk for Peace asked something different. It asked us what we are for.
For peace. For compassion. For shared responsibility. For each other.

And people responded.

More than 20,000 South Carolinians chose to show up — in care. That matters. It tells us something essential about who we are beneath the noise and division - that fear does not need to be our default.

This is exactly the kind of work Be The Ones exists to nurture.

We believe civic participation doesn’t begin at the ballot box or in a city council meeting. It begins with belonging and agency. With the feeling that you matter and that your care has a place to land. 

What I witnessed was civic life in its most raw human form. 

I believe people across South Carolina — and honestly, across the country — are craving this kind of engagement, this kind of shared participation. Spaces where care is something we can practice together.

The Walk for Peace reminded me that another way is possible - and that it’s already happening.

For Be The Ones, this moment strengthens our resolve to keep creating spaces that invite people into civic life through joy, creativity, and connection. More gatherings. More listening. More opportunities to show up locally — not because we’re afraid of what will happen if we don’t, but because we believe in what can happen if we do.

If you’re wondering what to do next, start small. Check on a neighbor. Ask someone how they’re really doing — and wait for the answer. And listen. 

Care doesn’t have to be grand to be powerful.

And if you’re looking for a place to plug in - for a community to be part of - we’re here. Be The Ones is for all South Carolinians. We’re building something rooted in care and community — from the ballot box to those pesky potholes to moments like the Walk for Peace — and we’d love to have you be part of it. 

With gratitude and resolve,
Cate