2011 Contributors Silent Auction Items V-P Beacon article (PDF copy here) Printable 2011 Flyer
About One Love Festival
Our Mission
Through music, art, words, and performance, One Love Festival seeks to create a community united in hope and a world at peace where all are joined in One Love.
The Concept
Conceived as a snapshot of what world peace would look like (even if for only one night), the festival is held every October at Virginia Wesleyan College. The flavor of the festival is unique every year, but the idea is the same: bring all kinds of people together to create a community of harmony and peace, enjoy all different kinds of performances, and most of all have fun. The festival is a free event open to all ages.
The Next Festival
Planning is underway for the 7th Annual One Love Festival, to be held Sat. Oct. 20, 2012. There are a lot of opportunities to volunteer with the group that plans the festival. Visit our Get Involved page for more info, and fill out the Contact form to get in touch with us. Bring your talents to the table, meet new friends, and help make the world a better place. Whether or not you want to volunteer, plan to join us next October for an afternoon and evening of peace, music, drumming, dance, poetry, spoken word, and other performances, and wake up the next day with a full heart, ready to go out and change the world.
The Last Festival
The 6th Annual 2011 One Love Festival took place Saturday, October 22, 2011. The event began with a workshop sponsored by the Bishop Sullivan Pax Christi Community. The workshop was be led by Angie O’Gorman, author of The Book of Sins, and editor of The Universe Bends Toward Justice: A Reader in Christian Nonviolence in the U.S. There was a book signing with the author after the workshop. The "Speak Your Peace" open mic event followed the workshop, and those who had reserved dinner also used the space for dining, lending a café/dinner-club atmostphere to the room. Meanwhile, Arthur Lopez of Virginia World Rhythms Drum Circles led an afternoon drum circle jam, and later got everybody involved in an exciting, fun-filled drumming circle during the evening concert. The evening concert featured performances by The Friends School Soundwaves (a youth drumming group) and The Friends School Vibes (youth singing group), Lawrence Lambert, Narissa Bond, poets Vivian Teter and Eddie Dowe, the Ebenezer Unity Choir, Playback Hampton Roads, and Life Force Band.
Our History
Community peacebuilding. One simple idea. One group of like-minded individuals. An opportunity to change the world.
The One Love Festival started out as a simple idea. In the fall of 2005 after a 9/11 vigil, friends Rick Mateo, a Buddhist, and Whit Peace, a Quaker, began a conversation about world peace. Both agreed peace begins one person at a time, one neighborhood at a time.
They also recognized that their common interest in music was a means to bring people together to celebrate peace in a way that would transcend religion, nationality, race, age, and all other states of being.
This was the beginning of the One Love Festival, a free interfaith festival that would focus on all varieties of performance, such as music, dance, the spoken word, art, and prayer, as well as include a peace education component for both young and old.
In early 2006, Rick and Whit and a handful of Buddhists and Quakers and other friends began meeting to plan the first One Love Festival at Virginia Wesleyan College, where Paul Rasor, Director of VWC’s Center for the Study of Religious Freedom, enthusiastically welcomed the group’s mission.
That fall they opened the doors to the inaugural One Love Festival. Performing artists of all faiths and backgrounds shared their peacebuilding messages through music and the arts with a receptive audience. Since then every fall One Love Festival has offered the community a chance to transcend differences and embrace the oneness that joins all people together. Festival founders, friends, and volunteers have watched the event grow well beyond anything they could have imagined or dreamed.
Co-founder Rick Mateo said, “Isn’t it amazing how a simple idea can grow? It just takes people of like minds who have a passion for peace, all coming together as one.”
Besides Virginia Wesleyan College’s enthusiastic support, many like-minded groups—United Nations Peace Day, Earthdance, Fair Trade Festival, Tidewater Peace Alliance’s Festival for Peace, and HRNN’s Season For Nonviolence—have helped support One Love Festival.
Community peacebuilding is what the One Love Festival is all about. And while the event only occurs one day each year, the energy it generates among the performers, the audience, and its volunteers continues to spread and grow the other 364 days of the year.
Co-founder Whit Peace believes the One Love Festival “makes a difference for the better—for our community, the world and, most importantly, within you.”
