By james art Blake Brewer spends his days on a mission to inspire 1 million people to write a letter to a loved one that will say the hard things, mend relationships, and build bridges to a confident future.
After dealing with the loss of her father, Brewer created The Legacy Letter Challenge to empower people to express their feelings in writing to their children or other loved ones to impact their lives and futures.
Brewer was swimming with his father in the waters of Hawaii when his father drowned. In the hazy trauma of the tragedy, Brewer’s mother gave him a letter from his father, which he brought with him on the family vacation. At 19, reading his father’s words changed Brewer’s life.
“Through his letter, my father was there for me in my darkest moments. His voice was with me,” Brewer said.
Baton Rouge men and women joined Brewer in his Legacy Letter Challenge letter writing movement, believing the city’s launch would positively impact Baton Rouge. On Wednesday, October 9, about 200 people gathered at the Renaissance Hotel in Baton Rouge to learn how to write a letter. Brewer taught the participants in the room how to format and draft a letter to their children or a loved one.
Not just a letter, but a specific letter to leave a legacy.
“Are you preparing your children for the challenges they will face?” Brewer asked the audience.
Launch of the Legacy Letters Challenge at the Renaissance Hotel.
Sitting down to write something is daunting for many people, so Brewer and his team broke the process down into eight doable and accessible steps: an introduction, an apology, a promise of unconditional love, a declaration of pride, a statement of faith in the other person, memories, life advice and closure.
Brewer emphasized expressing responsibility for the apology section — conveying unconditional love and pride in who their loved one is, not what they’ve done.
During each event, Brewer introduces each section and provides time for people to write a rough draft using the Legacy Letter workbook. The workbook contains space for writing and an application section with character traits and phrases.
To prepare the workbook and presentation, Brewer used leadership and parenting principles from authors such as Ken Canfield, Meg Meeker, Paul Tripp, James Clear, and John Maxwell to help him develop the letter template.
“I know this letter is in many ways not an easy letter to write,” Brewer said, “but the reward comes in the end.”
Discovering the City of Baton Rouge
A native of Shreveport, Brewer has lived in Arkansas, Texas and Oklahoma, but has many ties to Louisiana. Launching Legacy Letters in Baton Rouge included strategic business partnerships and library collaborations.
“We want to create something that is sustainable,” he said. “When businesses buy into our program, they do it for impact, but they realize the value in it. The letter helps their employees grow in emotional intelligence and become better teammates.
Ben Brewer and Mary Stein are working together to bring the Legacy Letter Challenge to the city through the East Baton Rouge Parish Library.
The East Baton Rouge Parish Library has partnered with the Legacy Letter Challenge to offer workshops, writing sessions and online tools to patrons with their library card.
Mary Stein, assistant library director of the East Baton Rouge Parish Library, said the library’s first interest in Legacy Letters was the opportunity to increase literacy and provide more writing opportunities for adults. Letter writing is a good exercise for people learning to read.
“We have a lot of adults who come here for recreational programs or business programs or consumer health and educational wellness programs, so we already have a tradition of offering workshops and support groups,” Stein said. “We intend to use the same template in the library workshops. The legacy letter is right up our alley because it’s achievable.”
Library staff have attended sessions with Brewer and can provide support and guidance to anyone wishing to write their own legacy letter. Groups can go to the library together or individuals can attend Legacy Letter sessions. The library will also provide a payment option for the online toolkit and webinar.
“The library’s mission is about accessing and connecting people, not just information and resources, technology for materials, but also expertise to make that positive change in our lives,” Stein said. “For me, it’s about moving the needle forward and building capacity for our citizens, our community here. It’s positive, it’s intentional, it’s real. It allows for real sharing, thoughtful communication.”
Stein believes that the power of the letter is that people can go back to them and read the words whenever they want.
“The very act of translating something from your brain, where it’s floating around and constantly changing, to something that’s concrete on a piece of paper is a transformative thing,” she said.
Ripple effects
The day Brewer’s father died was the worst day of his life, he said. But his father gave him the letter, which gave Brewer purpose. From stages and rooms across the country, Brewer now shares the day he felt loneliest and most vulnerable to spread the power of a letter.
“To come to Baton Rouge, where 200 people are sitting there writing this letter, creating this for their family and doing something that at one point was just an idea, is amazing. It’s so rewarding to be able to honor my dad in this way.” Brewer said. “The impact, the ripple effect of this is going to be — we can’t even measure the ripple effect on the city.”
Visit www.legacyletter.com/batonrouge for more information on how to write your own letter. The Legacy Livestream will take place from 7am to 8:30pm on Monday, November 11th online.