The Peace Project

Dear Friends,

For the past two years I’ve worked tirelessly. I’ve led a movement called The Peace Project that was launched to show that great change can happen very quickly if people around the world join hands.

Since we began less than two years ago, we’ve manifested countless miracles together including:

• Creating Peace Walls in Sierra Leone, Africa, and Los Angeles, California.
• Providing education for dozens of children in Sierra Leone that may not have had the opportunity otherwise.
• Developing two traveling art exhibits to promote Peace and publishing two books.

Plus, just one year after we launched, we implemented one of the largest social efforts ever in Sierra Leone, Africa, and distributed 10,000 pairs of crutches that provided mobility and hope for a better day to thousands of amputees, polio survivors, war victims, women and children, plus their families and communities.

Thousands of you have donated money, time, art, services, and given your passion to this cause. Your faith, hope and dedication has not only been the catalyst for transforming me, but has also been the catalyst for transforming the world and hopefully, yourself.

The Peace Project’s primary initiative this year has been the development of the first Peace Center in Sierra Leone that will not only provide critical skills training, education and other opportunities, but will also help bring a renewed sense of justice and peace to this country that has suffered so greatly.

If you have landed on this page, chances are that you know there is a contest involved and the organization with the most votes gets $50,000 (half of the cost to build The Peace Center), while the five runners-up get $10,000. Myself, Michele D’Acosta and Heidi Huber have dedicated the last two months to this campaign, and have been joined by volunteers including Rosendo, Cynthia Land, Ckay, Respond Academy, Christian White, April Ritchey, JoAna Richardson, Claudia Gonzalez, and countless others who have stepped up and dedicated time, energy and pure intention.

We have hosted dozens of events, appeared at dozens of others, sent out close to ten thousand personal emails and dozens of eBlasts. We have pulled one rabbit out of the hat after another and just last night at 2am I found myself writing an email to Yoko Ono asking for her support. I can’t help but think about last Sunday, when after a few hours of sleep due to a late event at The Whole 9 Gallery, I hustled my four year old daughter, Willow, out of bed to “Get Out the Vote” at West LA Methodist Church with Rosendo and Claudia Gonzalez, and then went to a mosque in South Central LA to meet a group of Sierra Leoneans and garner their support.

The absurdity of it all struck me as Michele recounted stories of attending events in the UK by herself with three laptops to sign up voters and I sloshed through 6” deep puddles in the pouring rain to get to the mosque with Willow in one hand, an umbrella in the other, a laptop and an iPad in my bag, and a hole in my shoe because I simply haven’t had the time to get it fixed.

The reality is that we have done all we can and because of failures that are not our own, it's time to stop voting. We will keep you posted on what is happening, but know that we have won far more than the money at stake.

Thousands of people around the world, on all seven continents, and across dozens of countries including Sierra Leone, have once again stepped up, reached out and said “yes” to a better, more peaceful world. We have all stood firm in our integrity, joined hands and developed a new model for changing the world that is rooted in honesty, integrity, and inclusiveness.

Thank you. Please know that our journey together is not over, it is just beginning. And the first Peace Center will still get built in Sierra Leone because of each one of you.

Again, at this point, I’d like to ask you to redirect your energy, stop rocking the vote, and get back to what we do best, changing the world!!!

With all my love and boundless appreciation,


Lisa Schultz, Founder
The Peace Project | TheWhole9.com

Through creativity and community, we ARE changing the world.

CURRENT INITIATIVES