Hugging: A Crime Most Heinous

How dare a student put his arm around his girlfriend's shoulders! I have never heard of anything so improper! And to think that friends would dare to go so far as to actually hug each other at the end of a school day! They must be punished!

Please excuse my excessive use of sarcasm, but sometimes I think that it’s the best way to express extreme disgust.

Is this really the kind of world that we want our kids growing up in? A world where simple touch is something that they will be disciplined for?

Rules that prohibit touching and hugging in schools are becoming more prevalent and more strict in schools across America. Something must be done, and if not us, then who?

I've written on the subject of hug bans in schools before here, my feelings are that I haven't made enough of an impact. After my last blog entry regarding the school rules prohibiting hugs, I was shocked by the response I had (not here, but on myspace). I’ve received many comments and messages from people who are totally outraged by these bans. I wasn’t surprised that people were against the rules, but that so many seemed not to have even known about them before reading my blog was a bit of a shock. These are people who could and should be having an input and affect on these rules that affect our children. Regardless of this reaction, I still don't feel that it is enough. We need to take action.

I have decided that I'll be putting together a kind of questionnaire to use in interviewing people who I (and you) think should have some say in these “no-touching” and “no-hugging” rules that are popping up in more and more schools.

I need your opinions. Your ideas as to who should be included in interviews and what kind of questions I should ask will be very important to this process. I may even need some volunteers to help me with the interviews. Teachers, psychologists, medical doctors, parents, and students are some of the people who make sense to me. If you can think of anyone else who should be interviewed, please let me know!

Now I also need your help in raising awareness of these rules and the changes needed in our schools. Please link to this blog and tell your friends about it in order to help me keep everyone updated on these issues and MAKE SURE YOU LEAVE COMMENTS! By contributing your opinion on these matters, you will be helping bring us a step closer to making sure that our children do not grow up in schools where acts of kindness and affection are marked as improper or dirty.

School Enforces Strict No-Touching Rule
Tustin middle school students suspended for repeated hugging
13-Year-Old Girl Gets Detention for Hugging
School Club Battles Against "Hug Ban" By Organizing a "Hug Day"
Stop the War On Hugs

Great News!

I am officially starting to work on building a Hugs Heal Online Community! I have bought the domain name and am currently setting up the hosting account. I've also decided to take on a few volunteers to help run the Hugs Heal Myspace. I will still be reading and answering all comments and messages, posting bulletins, and updates myself. These things will not be done by volunteers.

I'll be posting periodic updates as I go through the process of building this social network. Until then, I'd like to share some ideas for the community with you.

Here are some of the ideas I have:

Members should be able to

• Send each other “hugs”; i.e. “Click here to hug Michael”
• Invite friends outside Hugs Heal to become members
  
• Earn points that can be used to buy items in the Hugs Heal Shop
• Members can earn points for: friend referrals, organizing/participating in Hugs Heal activities, donations they collect
• Create unique avatars
• Post challenges for themselves and other members
  
• Submit ideas for Hugs Heal activities
  
• Participate in or organize activities
• Create profiles
• Add friends (buddies?) with details about how they know them
• Suggest things to be featured on site; i.e. quotes, people, organizations, pictures (site section)
• Plan and invite each other to events and activities (make sure mass invites can be sent, make sure members can disable this feature if desired)
• Keep a blog?
• Build their own groups within Hugs Heal Community
• Search for friends by name/email/zip, etc.
• Enter in contests
• Vote in contests
• Block members they do not wish to communicate with
• Report spam/abuse
• Vote in polls
• Ask for support from other members in the peer support center

Other Ideas

• Polls (all members invited to vote)
• Private chatrooms
• “Hug of the Day” - featured hug; could be any person, picture, organization, type of hug, i.e. comforting hug, affectionate hug, friendly hug, loving hug, etc.
• Automatically feature a welcome to the newest member
• Show how many member are online
• Spirit Lifter of the Day
• Randomize quotes through out site
• Members will be called “Huggers”
• Points Earned = Different Huggers Status, ie. Bronze, Silver, Gold Members

Contests - Winners get item(s) from Hugs Heal Shop, all Hugs Heal community members will be invited to vote for each contest

• Hug Photo Contest - members can enter any photo depicting a hug
• Hugs Heal Story Contest - members can share any experience in which they have witnessed a hug help anyone in anyway
• Donation Contest - Competition who can collect the most donations for a specific project or in a specific amount of time.
• Hug Visual Art Contest - members can enter an image representing any visual depiction of a hug or hugs, except photos go to the photo contest

Possible types of art medium including but not limited to (may be categories of contest, depending on number of entries)
Drawing
Painting
Sculpting
Graphic Arts

• T-Shirt Design Contest - members can enter a design to be printed on a t-Shirt (show printable area to members). Design can be a drawing, a graphic, and/or words that has a positive message in keeping with the spirit of Hugs Heal. Prize will be a T-Shirt with their design printed on it and their design will be featured and make available for purchase in the Hugs Heal Shop. Understand all profit from sales of items bearing the design will go to Hugs Heal.
• The Greatest Inspiration Contest - members share stories about how they have helped others in any way, members vote on who is the Greatest Inspiration

Sections of Site

• Home Page
• Help Section
• Suggestions by members
• Challenges (Daily? Weekly?)
• Search/Browse members (name, email, zip code, group membership)
• About Hugs Heal
• Why I Started Hugs Heal
• Peer Support Center (members can post about problems or anything they need support from other members for, get support, advice, and answers to their questions)

Please share some of your ideas!

In Need of Ideas for the Hugs Heal Online Community

Hi everybody! I want to get started on opening up a Hugs Heal Online Community and I’d really love to hear any suggestions you might have for it.

Here are some of the ideas I have:

• members can send each other messages, comments, and "Hugs" (I haven’t decided what the "Hugs" will be; any ideas?)
• members will be able to invite their friends to join
• members will be able to post ideas on how to help others
• members can post "Hugs Needed" ads to which others can respond
• Hug Photo contests, prizes from Hugs Heal Shop
• members will be able to participate and organize Hugs Heal activities in their area
• Hug Story contests, prizes from Hugs Heal Shop
• Inspiring people/ organizations will be featured throughout website
• members will be able to earn Hug Points that will go toward buying items in the Hugs Heal Shop by the things they do within the community (participating in contests and challenges, referring friends, etc.
  
• members will be able to create avatars
• Hug Illustration Contest, best illustration depicting a hug wins
• Members will be able to start their own groups within the community

Please share some of your ideas!

I Need Your Help!

Hugs Heal needs your help right now. The Hugs Heal Shop has been open since 1/17/08 and only one person has made a purchase! If Hugs Heal cannot sell the items in the shop, we will never be able to do the many things that Hugs Heal is capable of doing.
The Hugs Heal Shop includes many low-cost customizable products, baby clothes, tote bags, women's shirts, men's shirts, and pins.

A portion of the proceeds from these sales will go toward expanding Hugs Heal in many ways. It is my hope to start a Hugs Heal Online Community; a social network that will bring people together through hugs and love. I also want to start an in-person club and organize activities like visits to hospitals, passing out sandwiches to the homeless, and protesting Hug Bans in schools. These are just some of the many plans I have for Hugs Heal.

With your help, Hugs Heal has could touch an amazing amount of lives. Please help by purchasing something and passing the word along!

A Lesson in My New Responsibilities

Today on the Hugs Heal Myspace I received messages from two different people who were both very unhappy with me, for two completely different reasons. Before today, the only messages that I had received about Hugs Heal were very positive; wonderful messages sending hugs and love and thanks for starting Hugs Heal. I had never received anything remotely negative. One of these things was not my fault at all, a simple miscommunication that was extremely unfortunate; as for the other, I was wholly at fault. But both messages have made me understand that I have some very important, very new responsibilities that need to be a priority for me.

The first message told me that a friend of Hugs Heal had sent me a previous message asking me to post a very important bulletin about a young woman who had been kidnapped. Since Hugs Heal has so many friends, it makes sense that this request would have been made to me so that as many people as possible would have access to the information about this young woman. However, I never received message, even though according to Myspace, I had. I'm very sad to say that the body of this young woman has been found, too late. To see the information about this, please follow this link: Denise Lee

The other was from another friend of Hugs Heal saying that she had sent me hugs and messages, and that lately she hadn't been hearing back from me. She said that she didn't think it was right that I was sending out messages about the new Hugs Heal Shop when I wasn't even responding to her messages. This is all true. I've been trying to keep up with responding to messages and comments, sending out birthday wishes, designing logos, trying to bring in money for projects for Hugs Heal along with a profit that will allow me to devote myself to it more completely, running my own separate business, getting ready for school to start up (I'm a returning college student), and everything else in my life. I explained all of this to her and she was very understanding, which I'm thankful for, but it still makes me think.

I started Hugs Heal as a way to express the dear love I feel for hugs and how important I believe they are. I never expected for Hugs Heal to become such a huge part of my life, or that so many people would respond to it with such enthusiasm. But now, Hugs Heal has over 2,300 Myspace friends, people who contribute content to it, who send me messages wanting talk or needing the hugs that they feel they can get just by talking with me. Because of all this, I now have a responsibility to these people that I did not have before.

I am now responsible for spreading news that needs to be spread, sharing hugs that need to be shared, posting pictures and stories that need to be posted, and answering messages that need to be answered.

I had not expected these responsibilities, but now that Hugs Heal is so important, especially to me, I will do my very best to do right by it.

Grand Opening of The Hugs Heal Shop

Hi everybody! I just wanted to let you know about the Grand Opening of The Hugs Heal Shop! Here you can help spread the message that hugs have real healing power by purchasing Shirts, Mugs, Buttons, Magnets, Stickers, Baby Clothes, Hats, and more with Hugs Heal logos on them. Please visit by clicking the image below.

I have many ideas for Hugs Heal; I'd like to expand it into other things and reach more people. You can help with this and spread the message at the same time by making a purchase in The Hugs Heal Shop! Please visit!

By the Non-Existant Hair of My Chinny-Chin-Chin

Goal reached, just in time! Woohoo! 2,000 Myspace friends by Jan 1, 2008! Thanks to everyone who helped by adding Hug Heal and by placing my banner on your site!

And you know what they say: "When one goal is reached, another has to be set." Okay, fine. The saying is actually "When one door closes, somewhere opens a window", but... same difference.

New Goal: 2,500 Myspace Friends by Feb 1. And let's not forget the ongoing secondary goal 10 subscribers to this blog by Jan 15. Help out by subscribing right now!

How I Came Up With “Hugs Heal”

I've had some people asking me how exactly I came up with Hugs Heal and why I choose to do this, so here's the deal.

I've always enjoyed hugs and thought that they were a very important part of anyone's life, but that thought was always kind of abstract; I didn't have anything specific to attribute it to. But not long ago I was reading an article on abc.com about a study that was done showing that hugs can actually reduce the risk of heart disease. I remember thinking “Wow, hugs really do heal.” I thought that was so incredible and a such very important find. It made me think of all the times in my life that a hug has made me feel better and all times I've hugged friends and family members when I thought they needed it. I realized that hugs have a far more profound effect on our lives than most people really appreciate. So, I came up with the "Hugs Heal" idea.

So far it's just a myspace and a blog, but people have been responding so wonderfully to my message that who knows where it will go. I've been getting all sorts of ideas about making this into a real organization, but it's a bit early to consider that too seriously. For now, I just want to get my message across and touch as many lives as possible in the process.

Stop The War On Hugs

I have just read yet another article about students getting in trouble for hugging. Personally, I find these "Hug Bans" at school absolutely ridiculous, unnecessary, and potentially harmful to America's youth. Please Click Here to read the article and get a better idea what these rules are about.

Every time I hear about a student being punished for giving their friend a hug, my chest constricts, my face turns red, my hands clench, and let's just say that no one should be asking me any favors. Hugging is such an important part of our lives, and it is especially important to children and teenagers.

These are the years when emotions are already in such turmoil; how can we deny these children the simple and wonderful comfort of a hug? And if our youth grow up not experiencing the incredible power of hugs, how can we expect them to understand how important they are? How much will this effect these children? How will it effect how they treat they kids and grandkids? This is our future we're talking about. Are we headed down a very slippery slope toward an world where freely-given affection will be socially unacceptable?

These bans may seem insignificant to some, but if they are allowed to continue, I believe that they will spread and evolve into stricter and stricter rules banning many expressions of affection. Just how many acts of warmth and friendliness are we willing to allow our children to miss out on?

How can we expect our children to become kind people in adulthood if we punish them for acts of kindness in adolescence?

1,000 Friend Goal Reached 4 Days Early!

Hey everybody! I have surpassed my goal of 1,000 Myspace friends by Dec. 1 and it's only Nov. 27! Yay!

Now, I still need 8 more subscribers to this blog by Dec. 8, so you guys have to help me out by subcribing and telling your friends to visit, ok?

Friends and Subscription Goal

Okay you guys, my goals for Hugs Heal at the moment is to have 1, 000 Myspace friends and at least 10 subscribers to this blog by Dec. 1, 2007.

Help please!

To become a friend of Hugs Heal, please click here and add me!

To subscribe to this blog by looking to the right and clicking "Subscribe to Hugs Heal"

Or better yet, do both!

A Hugs Heal Online Community

I am very seriously considering turning Hugs Heal into an interactive online community, like myspace or facebook. I can set it up so it will bring people together through hugs! Friends can send each other vitural hugs, photos, stories, and anything else having to do with hugs!

Does any one have any ideas about what I might want to include in an online community?

I'd also like to design some clothes with the Hugs Heal logo to sell in order to help spread the message.
Any advice?