A report from Beth Husen about creating a Soul Box Exhibit to honor her sister-in law
Dr. Stephanie Husen, killed in a mass shooting at Saint Francis Hospital in Tulsa, Oklahoma
on June 1, 2022

Our family became fans of Wear Orange Weekend a year after we lost Steph. We were all still dealing

with her loss. My mother-in-law, Joyce, discovered Wear Orange and the found the meaning behind it

very inspiring. As a member of Moms Demand Action, I had participated in it before, but never fully

realized the significance until after June 1, 2022. We worked with Moms Demand Action last year to

try to get as many buildings and organizations to light up orange as we could as well as obtain city

proclamations and publicity. We did fairly well, but unfortunately most of the press wanted to center

around the year anniversary of her shooting rather than what we were working on for all survivors.

 

After last years’ experience, I met with members of Moms Demand Action and Everytown and they

agreed to let our family take over the event to try to make it bigger and try something new.

I began looking through the internet for ideas. When I came upon the Soul Box Project, I was instantly

intrigued. It looked like an amazing way to honor survivors and to bring attention to the gun violence

problem in our country. It also seemed like a project that we could pour our time and energy into that

was full of love and healing rather than anger and frustration, as were some of the things we had tried –

writing editorials, meeting with legislators, etc. I asked Joyce to look at

SoulBoxProject.org  and let me know if she liked it (enough to help). She loved it and was ALL in.

 

From there, we dreamed big. We had a goal of displaying 217 Soul Boxes, and no less! I was very worried about this,

but Joyce got right to work. She instantly organized Soul Box-making gatherings with friends and family and

church members from all over the country. I partnered with MDA and organized a few Box-making

gatherings as well. I also knocked on a lot of doors and contacted numerous organizations from all over

town to locate survivors in order to give them a chance to make a memorial Soul 

Box. In this process, I made lots of new contacts and support to keep forging ahead. Even if they were 

unable to help us, everyone was so supportive and loved hearing about the Soul Box Project. By May,

we had collected over 727 Boxes, so many we were unable to fit them all on display panels, as we originally planned.

 

From the beginning, I was determined to have our exhibit in an upscale art gallery, of which Tulsa

has many. My sights were on Philbrook Museum, which is rated one of the top 10 museums in the

country. It was not an easy task,. It took a lot of patience, and finding out who knows who on what board,

and then a “business”lunch with the President of the museum, who was very kind but would not commit. However,

we would not take unreturned calls for an answer. He did invite us to a Tulsa Attraction meeting of numerous public

organizations in Tulsa and gave us a few minutes to introduce our plans. From there, we made several

contacts, including a representative of the Guthrie Green Park who invited us to participate in their Art

Crawl, which unbeknownst to us, was an even bigger venue than Philbrook. Once we secured both

locations, plus a third at Circle Cinema,  it was wonderful to see the delight on the faces of the survivors making Soul Boxes for

their loved ones. It made all the difference. It was important for them to know that we were doing our best to make

sure as many people as possible would see this exhibit .

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At least four TV news stories covered these exhibits!