Today we’d like to introduce you to Gabrielle Bovard.
Hi Gabrielle, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
I started Random Note Project as a young teenager. At the time, like many teenagers, I felt really overwhelmed. Aside from the challenges of becoming emotionally mature, navigating friendships, and completing schoolwork, there was a strong pressure to know exactly what I wanted to do with the rest of my life. I wanted to help people, but how? I started looking around to other adults. What were they doing? Were they happy? Did they have a life I would want for myself? Were they making a difference (I really wanted to!)? As I looked around, I saw that a lot of adults had the same feelings that I did. At every age, people struggled with whether they were on the right path, whether their life and work mattered. People of all ages were feeling lonely, confused, frustrated, and tired. I didn’t have the answer, but I knew what I was hoping to hear. I wanted to hear that everything would be okay, that my life would be good, that I have value and worth even when I don’t know what’s next, that life is beautiful and it doesn’t need me to analyze it. I figured that if I needed those words, other people probably did too. So, I started writing them on scraps of paper. I hid these scraps everywhere–in library books, taped to telephone poles, on community bulletin boards. At the time, I didn’t have a name for what I was doing. I merely hid the notes anonymously and trusted they would find the people who needed to read them.
One day in 2011, I was hiding notes near Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. A student named Adam found a note and was intrigued. He started posting notes of his own that said, “I found your notes but I didn’t find you,” with an email address. Several days later, I miraculously found one of Adam’s notes, emailed him, and he offered to build me a website so I could track the stories of the notes. It was then that Random Note Project was officially born.
Today, people all around the world write encouraging notes for strangers to find. Finders upload their stories to the website where I share them on our social media pages. It is remarkable to see that we all share common fears, challenges, and circumstances. I truly believe that most people want to help and encourage others, but we don’t know-how. We don’t know what other people are dealing with and, so often, we fear we are alone in our own struggles. Random Note Project offers a platform for people to share and receive support and connection in a meaningful way. It gives us all a chance to see how we are all so connected. None of us are truly alone in our lives.
What started as a 14-year-old girl hoping to find her future has led to a 35-year-old woman grateful that we don’t need to have all the answers; we can do so much good by being exactly who we are in the moment we have right now. My hope is that Random Note Project continues to be a bridge that brings us all closer together where we can share in our humanity. The right words at the right time do make a difference.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
For me, the path has always been one step at a time. If it wasn’t smooth, I didn’t notice because I was never planning for this to be anything other than my love letter to the world. Now that it has grown, I can certainly look back and see my struggles. I am still the writer of the vast majority of our notes. I would absolutely love to see other people join and start writing notes as well. We abide by Leave No Trace and ask for permission before posting on private property so that it can be fun for everyone.
Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
Professionally, I am a user experience writer. I write the words that people see when they use digital products. For all my teenage angst, I am grateful that I found a line of work that is perfectly suited to my strengths. Random Note Project is driven by both writing and empathy. I want people to read my notes and feel encouraged, inspired, and strengthened to continue in their lives. That is exactly what I do as a user experience writer. I study the people who use our digital products, understand what they need to succeed in their goals, and write words that help them to do that while feeling supported. In a world where everything is digital, we seldom realize how many of our frustrations and wins come from interactions with technology. I like to think that, in many ways, I am writing Random Notes as I work. When I started writing notes, I would hide them in places where I thought people would find them. I wanted encouraging words to interrupt their unconscious thought processes. I am doing the same thing professionally by meeting people in the tech they use every day and bringing them encouragement and joy in the process.
How do you think about luck?
I don’t believe in luck. I think it is one of the many ways we detach from our magic and the magic in the world around us. Luck lives somewhere out there–you can’t harness it. But if we believe that we’re all connected and we all have purpose and power within us, then we’re free to do a lot with that. Have great, unexpected things happened along the way? Of course! I think that Adam finding the note and helping me to define Random Note Project as a real initiative with a website was a huge gift. But was it luck? No. To me, it was a good person seeing the good in the world and wanting to join in using his own unique talents and power. It is further proof that we are all connected and that life is very, very good.
Pricing:
- It’s free for anyone to join!
Contact Info:
- Website: www.randomnoteproject.com
- Instagram: www.instagram.com/randomnoteproject/
- Facebook: www.facebook.com/randomnoteproject/
