One Hug at a Time

Book excerpt: Since his friend died in the World Trade Center attacks on September 11, 2001, David Sylvester adopted a mission to enhance the world one interaction at a time. To that end, he bicycled and gave charitable service in: North America 2002 - Washington State to Philadelphia Africa 2004 - Cairo to Cape Town Asia 2007 - Istanbul to Beijing North America 2008 - San Diego to NYC North America 2011 - Minneapolis to NYC Australia 2015 - Sydney to Melbourne Unable to bicycle in 2016, "Big Dave"- as he is known - continued his mission via a car and staged Hug Events in 31 states - making it a point to visit places touched by violence like San Bernardino, OKC, Chicago, Cleveland, and Orlando the Pulse Nightclub. The previous year's warmth prompted him to hug people at the "literal" heart/center of the nation in Lebanon, KS, on Valentine's Day 2017. Later in 2017, he continued with Hug and High5 Tour of America and hugged 14K people in 48 states. The experience was fantastic and must have touched a lot of people's hearts because when the shootings in Las Vegas and Sutherland Springs, Texas, occurred - people said, "Dave get down there and hug people." And he did. Since then, he's staged hug tours throughout Alaska, Europe, and Israel. And even did a 48 state goodwill tour during the pandemic just to create more smiles in the world. That's the story! David Hale Sylvester is just a guy who wants the world to smile and has embraced 500,000] people in 50 states and 42 countries in 20 years to make that grin happen. Here are 99 picture-punctuated stories from Big Dave's travels that will hopefully make you smile too and offer a hug to someone too. Enjoy