Hi Folks! This is our (drum roll…) seventh year of hugging Victorians and everyone else who wanders by and wants one! We still remember how terrified we were on our first hugging adventure, and how enervated we are now when the opportunity presents itself. We didn’t have as many opportunities last year as we would have liked, but in 2014 we hugged people from 41 countries (that we know about). We wanted to get a jump on things this year, and since we’ve been having such lovely weather lately, we went out on our earliest ever Hugging session on April 2. Well, we hugged people from Victoria and other places on the island, people from mainland BC, Alberta, Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia and Newfoundland. We hugged neighbours from Washington and Montana, and neighbours from as far away as South Carolina. And we hugged people from Brazil, Chile, China, India, Ireland, Japan, Korea, Mexico, Romania, Thailand and Vietnam. Thirteen countries so far, and that’s only our first outing!

We’re planning to be out again late in the afternoon of April 14, so if you find yourself downtown drop by the Homecoming Memorial near Ship Point and share a hug with us!

Hugs,
M&M

A most huggable woman!

Update: We went out hugging on April 14 (as mentioned), and again on April 16. We’re not out every Saturday, but mostly on Saturday afternoons if you’re looking for us. We inducted two new people into our free hugs campaign on the 14th (see images below) and we’re reasonably confident they’ll be spreading hugs wherever they go!

Our hugged countries count for this year now includes: Australia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, Denmark, Germany, India, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Mexico, Philippines, Romania, South Africa, Spain, Thailand, Vietnam, Wales, Uruguay, US. Thanks to all of those brave ambassadors for coming to share hugs with us! Thanks also to Benjamin (who posted an image on his blog), and thanks to all of those who gave us gifts yesterday – in addition to the hugs, smiles, waves, air hugs, thumbs up, honks, beeps, flashing lights from the fire truck and more, we received a gift of poetry and a lovely couple offered to buy us some ice cream. We trust you recognize how amazing you all are!