Last night Galesburg residents were asked what they love about the community and what they would change.
It’s the storytelling phase of the Galesburg Heart and Soul Project that kicked off in November.
This part of the two year project is for residents to have a chance to express their ideals and priorities for the future of the town.
They were able to do that last night in a variety of ways at the space on E. Simmons St. known as The Box.
Visitors could tell a story via video, write a message on a white board with volunteers taking a picture or by taking a selfie in front of The Portrait Project which was unveiled to the public last night.
The Portrait Project was created by Knox College’s artist-in-residence John Bakker this past fall, who hand painted over 300 portraits of Galesburg residents on box like panels.
Steve Cheesman is a member of Heart and Soul’s core leadership team who tells WGIL that this stage of the project is about exploring people’s feelings of the town.
“We all feel passionate about Galesburg,” Cheesman says. “We all want to celebrate all of the wonderful things about it and there are many wonderful things about it.”
The event was purely celebratory.
“We also want to take a look and see what folks think we can get better at,” Cheeseman adds.
The Heart and Soul team will continue to solicit positives and negatives from residents to get a representative sample of Galesburg.
