Since moving to the Three Rivers area 14 years ago, Ben and Nicole Karle have become involved in a variety of community efforts. Ben became a regular volunteer at downtown fair-trade store World Fare, including a stint as a board member. Nicole became involved with Huss Future Fest. They both began working in local school and farm initiatives, while supporting a variety of causes. 

Recently, they took up a new one.

The couple began distributing free “Hate Has No Home Here” yard signs at the Huss Farmers Market and other venues in the area.

It began with a decision to put up a sign of their own, Ben Karle said. “We were trying to order a yard sign for our house. I talked to my kids and said, ‘what if we did a GoFundMe and fundraised some money to do a bulk order and give them all away?’ And within two days we doubled what we were asking. We were asking for $500 and got $1,000 in generous donations from over 20 people. We were therefore able to purchase around 180 of the yard signs to distribute in the Three Rivers area primarily.” Ben said he wished to express “a huge thank you to all the donors who took the time out of their days to support such a great project.” 

“Our world is really struggling right now and can use any bit of empathy and love and acceptance that it can get, so it’s a positive message,” he said. “We also did it because we care. We thought that some people wouldn’t be able to afford to buy the signs or maybe have the resources to know about how to obtain them, so if we did a fundraiser to just give them away, that would be a method of getting that message out to a broader audience.”

Ben, who is a school social worker for the St. Joseph County Intermediate School District, has developed and is leading a Social Justice Awareness group through work, which he says got him thinking about the signs. He is also involved with some justice work through Three Rivers-based nonprofit *culture is not optional.

“We gave about half of them to the Huss Market, that they’re giving out to shoppers,” Karle said. “(We did) a good chunk in our neighborhood, more the north end of town, Tamarack, Lovers’ Lane, that area. A good chunk were in the Hoppin School area, and the rest of them went to the donors depending on where they lived, mostly around Three Rivers. It was a pretty good distribution throughout the Three Rivers area.”

The response has been quite positive, according to Ben. “We had a knock on the door yesterday saying, ‘hey, I heard you guys were the ones with the signs, can I get one?’ so there have been quite a few of those kinds of things. Our own neighborhood is just plastered with them, which has been really cool, but it’s positive to see them distributed across (the city). It’s not necessarily a political message, it’s just about acceptance.

Ben added that he and his kids “had a great time putting up a sign that said ‘free signs’ and leaving them on the corner in the morning, and having to come back and restock it because there were so many that were gone so quickly, which was great. I wish we had 180 more to give out.”

Ben said while it’s spreading a good message, “we also realize it’s just a yard sign.”

“The message can be really powerful, so we really encourage people to visit hatehasnohomehere.wordpress.com, which has more information about the project.” The site features the history of and literature on the nationwide initiative to distribute the “Hate Has No Home Here” message. The Hate Has No Home Here Project “promotes just and inclusive communities by encouraging neighbors to declare their homes, schools, businesses, and places of worship to be safe places where everyone is welcome and valued,” according to the website.

The signs Ben and Nicole Karle distributed are available through another website, hatehasnohome.org, which has yard signs, car and refrigerator magnets, and posters for sale.

Dave Vago is a staff writer and columnist for Watershed Voice. A Philadelphia native with roots in Three Rivers, Vago is a planning consultant to history and community development organizations and is the former Executive Director of the Three Rivers DDA/Main Street program.