Freeze!

What's more difficult to ignore while walking down the street than a person frozen in place, directly in your path? How about 100 frozen people? That's exactly what we did today as a part of The Salvation Army's "Ignore No More" campaign. 100 students from North Central University, along with many Salvation Army employees froze in place at the exact same time for exactly five minutes in downtown Minneapolis at 12:40pm. Every frozen person wore an Ignore No More sticker someplace on his or her body, which was the only clue about what was happening to confused passers-by.

Admittedly, I was nervous that I wouldn't be able to fully "commit," and actually remain still for five minutes without giving into my urges to step out of the way of all of the pedestrians barreling towards me. Surprisingly, it was not only easier than I thought, but it was also unbelievably fun. I decided to freeze in place while taking my umbrella out of its casing so that it would be clear that I was frozen in the middle of a task and not just standing still. The people walking past did double and triple takes, trying to figure out why I wasn't moving, and then looked around noticing the many, many others who were also frozen. I even heard more than one person say, "This is surreal..." Every person trying to walk down the sidewalk was forced to maneuver, swerve, and zig-zag around us, just to make it down the block!

The goal was to bring attention to Ignore No More by doing something impossible to ignore, and I definitely believe that that goal was achieved. When we broke out of our freeze after five minutes, we handed out stickers reading "Ignorenomore.org" and told them, "Curious? Check out the website." Are you curious about today's Freeze? Check out these pictures and the video below to see it yourself!