By Sarah Kinney
Staff Writer

On Sunday, Sept. 21, Hannah Brencher, founder of the More Love Letters project, gave the keynote address at the Simmons Leadership training.

She told the student leaders not to be afraid of deviating from the plan they foresee for themselves, to be okay with failure, and to stay in the present.

During her presentation, she gave students a list of at least 50 ways they might fail, but that were all surmountable.

Brencher said the fear of failure was too often used as an excuse to do nothing.

She told the story of her struggle with depression, how she came to start the letters project, and anecdotes about the numerous lives touched through the project.

One of the problems she saw in the world was that people filled their lives with short-term pleasures, like viral videos, and didn’t fill themselves with fulfilling ideals. She said that passion comes from the French “patir,” meaning “to suffer,” and to truly be passionate about something is to be willing to suffer to achieve it.

Through her project and itsgrowth to an extended community, hundreds of people have received packets to help them with whatever they were dealing with. Brencher cited examples of soldiers struggles with PSTD and an elderly woman losing the will to live after her friend died.

The letters, she feels, rebuild the community and connection lost in a world defined in 140 characters.

To learn more about the campaign, visit www.moreloveletters.com.