Tuesday, September 02, 2025

Back to school in chalk

Hope from a stranger
London, ON
September 2025
This photo originally shared on Instagram


The chalk angels have been at it again.

In advance of kids both here and across the country returning to school today, some kind strangers spent a lot of time and a lot of calcified sticks of colour drawing inspirational messages on the sidewalks and walking paths near the neighbourhood school.

I came across them on the weekend, cheerful inspiration every few metres, and a reminder that good people still exist.

These very same sidewalks have been spray-painted with swastikas and hate-filled screeds on multiple occasions over the past year or so. The perpetrator has been arrested three separate times, and in March he received a 182-day jail sentence.

I’m struck by the materials used in both cases: chalk for the good stuff, paint for the graffiti. While the paint ostensibly sticks around and the chalk washes off with the first rain, I’d like to think the inspirational messages are the ones that will stick longer in the minds of the kids who walk these paths.

Good always prevails over evil. It has to. Our kids are counting on it.

#ldnont #london #ontario #canada #sidewalk #chalk #backtoschool #signs #stilllife #streetphotography #photography #apple #iphone #iphone16 #shotoniphone


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