Families and friends in the Town of Dillwyn gathered at the town’s pocket park on Main Street Saturday morning to celebrate and get to know one another better during the Community Day Walk, organized by nonprofit Love No Ego.

Love No Ego, based in Charlottesville, focuses on engaging others and creating meaningful connections outside of labels that could potentially be seen as dividing people.

Coffee, energy bars and doughnuts were available to participants. Children played with bubble wands and got butterflies and soccer balls painted on their faces. Adults shared laughs in between sips of coffee.

Participants walked through the town to First Bank, and once reaching the bank, returned to the park.

Many wore red T-shirts with the Love No Ego label or purple shirts, reading “Push the Positive.”

Freddy Jackson, president of Love No Ego, said the aim during the event was to dismantle labels and learn to know and support one another.

“At the end of the day, we are all human,” Freddy said during the event. “We have an opportunity to help and be with one another.”

Queen Jackson, Freddy’s mother, lives in New Canton and expressed pride in her son’s work, and the event’s goal in bringing the community together.

Freddy also delivers motivational keynote speeches through Central Virginia, speaking earlier this year at Longwood University and in Charlottesville.

During the event, Loretta and Waco Reams, representing the town, presented Freddy with a donation.

“It’s awesome,” Queen said. “It gets together the community.”

Joe Rose, who owns Rose Hill Barber Shop and leads anti-bullying efforts in town, said the event offered a greater sense of community and support to those who need it.

“I think it’s going to bring the community together to have the hope that people will have someone to lean on and support them,” Rose said.

Maurice Carter, who serves as pastor of Crystal Cathedral Ministries in Dillwyn and director of Longwood University’s Call Me Mister program, said the walk was meant to invite people to experience and offer humanity to each other.

He asked the question, “Can’t we all get along?”

“This is a start for we, the community, to talk to one another,” Carter said.

Wearing a T-shirt with the message, “Push the Positive,” Carter said the walk is meant to show the impact that human connections and kindness can have on communities.

“These things that cause growth (and) connection, we want to get that message out,” Carter said.

He described how, in the U.S., it had been the action of handfuls of people that have issued societal change and unity.

“The best thing America has is her people,” Carter said. “If you want change, this is how it starts.”