Since its start in 2010, Color Me Community has had worldwide shared humanity at its heart. 2010 is when Life Pieces To Masterpieces ran its very first Color Me Community workshop with none other than the Bureau of Northern Ireland and the Northern Ireland Council for Voluntary Action! Since then, Color Me Community has formally developed into a series of workshops aimed at fostering cross-cultural understanding among people from different backgrounds and communities. 

We have used Color Me Community to guide Life Pieces program participants (Black and Brown boys and young men from Washington, DC’s most marginalized neighborhoods) through navigating and pushing against negative, harmful images and stereotypes that have attacked their identities throughout history. We also began using Color Me Community to help our diverse pool of young volunteers, who were feeling a range of guilt, blame, and shame that complicated their ability to build full relationships with our youth built on trust, respect, and reciprocity. 

Mary Brown, Life Pieces To Masterpieces cofounder, and creator of Color Me Community, recognized that feelings of self-doubt and shame about one’s identity were often felt by people of all cultural backgrounds. Here, then, was an opportunity for LPTM youth to share their experiences and perspectives with the world, while receiving the experiences and perspectives of different people from a vast range of cultures and backgrounds. 

By now, LPTM has conducted CMC workshops with over 1,000 leaders from our home city of DC, throughout the US, and more than 90 countries!