The Lewiston Is Our Hope Project is about pieces of hope that bind us together. This project began with a simple recognition: hope already lives here.

A Lewiston resident and psychologist, Yun Garrison, was inspired by the steady, everyday hope she witnessed among her neighbors and people around her—community leaders, long-time residents, newcomers, families, workers, elders, children, and young people. Even through difficult times, hope continues to take root in daily life.

The project is grounded in community-based research. Rather than studying the community from a distance, it listens to and works alongside community members. In fall 2025, Yun and her Bates College student team facilitated 47 community workshops to invite various people to share their reflections, stories, and visions for Lewiston. Their hope is what shaped this project.

During each workshop, participants drew their hope for Lewiston on locally sourced wood circles, where it took shape in colors, lines, and symbols. Participants were invited to give their hope a voice in a one-minute reflection. Some chose to speak, and some chose to hold their hope quietly. Both were honored. Some shared their names, and others chose to remain anonymous, finding comfort in belonging to the whole without needing to stand alone.

Through collective art-making, these shared hopes are transformed into something tangible—something we can see or hear and return to. Art becomes a way to remember, to connect, and to process what we as a community carry, protect, and dream.

Hope is not manufactured. It is what each of us cultivates from moment to moment and heart-to-heart experiences. The artwork takes on organic shapes, resisting mass production and uniform molds. As the organic wood circle embodies, hope grows in its own form—uneven, alive, and uniquely shaped by each person and each story.

It is a collective effort rooted in deep care for our neighbors in Lewiston. This website holds our community archive—the images drawn by many hands and the stories shared from the heart.