Wearing a “FREE MOM HUGS” shirt, with the “O” shaped like a heart in rainbow colors, Lola Greene of Oxford, Alabama, hugged an estimated 1000 people in San Francisco on Pride Weekend last month. Both she and her son Jay Greene of The Greene Law Firm were in the San Francisco Bay Times Pride Parade contingent. Our team of photographers captured photos of not only Lola, but also of other mothers wearing similar hug-inviting shirts along the parade route.
“Everybody is important, deserves to be loved, and to get a hug,” Lola told the San Francisco Bay Times in her lyrical soft Southern accent. “God created love and made everybody equal. He wants us to give love back.”
“I want everybody to be happy,” she added. “I wanted to be there for people who need family love. At both the parade and festival, people were friendly, warm, caring, compassionate and enjoying life. Individuals were giving me so much more back from the hugs. It made me feel important that people cared enough about me that they came up to me and wanted me to hug them. Everybody told me how fabulous and amazing I looked. People made me feel good about myself.”
In addition to the hugs, she gave away 5,000 rainbow stickers over the course of the weekend. Her son was often by her side. She explained, “It was fun to do something with my son where we could both show off our child at heart natures.”
At the parade they were also joined by Uber attorney Laura McAdams and her husband Paul of Landau Gottfried & Berger LLP. Laura said, “Walking in the Bay Times Pride contingent was the best way to start off Paul and my new journey in the first week of our move to San Francisco.”
Jay described the parade as “the experience of a lifetime. It was definitely an opportunity to have a lot of fun with many great memories. It allowed my mother to express her support for me in a way that I had never experienced before.”
Hopefully Lola can come back next year, when we imagine that more people—perhaps rejected from their own families—will be in need of a warm, caring hug.
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