Herstory

TODOL was conceptualized on October 19th, 2014 as “21 Days of Love”. Lorae V. Bonamy-Lohve was in the process of planning her 21st birthday the way an average twenty-year-old would; she wanted to have music, dancing, food and drinks to celebrate this “milestone”.  For some reason, none of her plans would work; everything was too expensive or already booked, in short, this birthday party was not happening. 

21st Birthday Campaign

On October 19th, Lorae was at a worship service in Philadelphia and heard a sermon titled “Crossing Lines”, and this rekindled the fire that was dying inside of her. The message was to step across invisible barriers to engage with people whether their social status was higher or lower than yours, because the great commission is for all people.  For the next few hours, Lorae began vision work in her journal, doodling and scribbling ideas of how she would make this work. From the beginning, the name was 21 Days of Love, and the vision was to “have 21 bags of 21 items and give them to 21 people over the course of 21 days”; obviously linked to her 21st birthday.

People heard the vision and began to ask how they could support her. Through online crowdfunding, she raised $500 and she received at least $300 cash. At the 21 Days of Love Kickoff Benefit Concert, hundreds of item donations were received and then the real work began. With the help of everyone who supported the vision, Lorae achieved what she set out to do. Over 50 love packages were given out, and people were grateful to receive them. 21 Days of Love also included a Prayer Walk, an Educational Workshop and serving on Christmas Day at Sunday Breakfast Rescue Mission; it was her desire to look at homelessness educationally, practically and spiritually.

"It broke my heart to see people have such a disregard for other people. Yes, maybe my money wouldn't be used for food, but what if it was? Why not give the benefit of the doubt? I always felt that if I had it, I should give it. I could not be concerned with whether the money was used for drugs or food, because I could not always see that far. Yes, I would hate to support substance use disorders, but I would also hate to leave someone hungry because of my own skepticism.

I felt privileged to be where I was at 21 years old, and I believed that because I was there, it was my duty to help someone else. I didn't have money; all I had was a strong desire to serve, and I set out to do just that.

I started 21 Days of Love as a personal birthday campaign. It was a way for me to commemorate my birthday with the help of my family and friends. It grew to an unbelievable size, and perfect strangers were calling me to support. That's when I realized the impact that this movement could have on our society, so we re-vamped a few things and thus was birthed 21 Days of Love: Practical-Intentional-Radical.

- lorae (2015)

21 Days of Love was a life-changing experience for Lorae because it enabled her to walk into adulthood with knowledge of what was important to her and what she would do about it. For 7 years, Lorae did a 21 Days of Love winter service drive between her birthday and Christmas, with the final campaign raising over $3,000 for a houseless man named Keith and his son. A shift happened after that year, and TODOL was birthed.