The Welcome Your Neighbors sign is being manufactured by printers across America, as the idea, started by Immanuel Mennonite Church in Harrisonburg, VA, spreads across the country.
I learned about them when I spotted one on a lawn on the walk to my daughter's school this morning, which prompted me to order one for our house.
Pastor Matthew Bucher was definitely not setting out to start a nationwide phenomenon. His sign went up last year after he was "pretty disappointed" with the rhetoric of the primary debates, especially as directed toward people who weren't born in the U.S.
"The church is located in the northeast part of Harrisonburg, which has a long tradition of being the African-American part of the city," he says. "But in the past 20 years it's also become home to a lot of people from Central America, the Middle East and around the world."
"That's why we did it in three languages — English, Arabic and Spanish," he explains. "Because those are the three most common languages spoken in our neighborhood."
A Message Of Tolerance And Welcome, Spreading From Yard To Yard
[Camila Domonoske/NPR]
