‘Homewood Unite!’: Local 12-year-old makes posters, yard signs to unite community

What started out as a simple school assignment quickly became a mission to unite Homewood for rising seventh grade student Mary Lee Guice.

Guice has gained popularity in town for her handmade posters and yard signs that promote equality and unity in Homewood as part of her community project, Homewood United, and she doesn’t plan on stopping there.

As part of the academic enrichment program at Homewood Middle School, her teacher, Erin Meachum, gave Guice an assignment so simple that it was confusing, she said.

The class was told to give a presentation about something they were passionate about, which could be anything, Guice said. Presenting their passion was the only guideline for the project, she said.

Her passion was something that hit close to home for her: equality.

“My brother is adopted from the Congo, so he has darker skin,” Guice said. “A lot of things about being nice to people that look different than you, a lot of that happens online and doesn’t reach as many elementary school and middle school kids, so I wanted to do an equality-type thing in a place where they would see it.”

She made oil pastel portraits of the heads of three people with different skin tones and hair color but no mouth, with the words “united” or “together” at the top of the portrait, and hung them up around the school, she said.

Multiple teachers saw them and wanted her to make one for their classrooms, Guice said.

“She was hand-doing all these posters. It was pretty tedious,” said Chandler Guice, Mary Lee’s mother.

“It was about 15 minutes, and I did three faces on each poster,” Mary Lee said.

They both quickly realized they would need to mass produce these posters, she said.

Guice said she made one “really good sign” and printed copies to sell on a massive scale.

Not only were her teachers asking for portraits but also her classmates, she said. She also visited multiple businesses in Homewood that agreed to hang her posters in their storefronts, Guice said. She later started making yard signs.

“We printed some yard signs and some posters, so I don’t really draw them out anymore unless I get a special request,” Guice said.

Chandler Guice also asked in a Facebook group of Homewood moms if they wanted to buy any of her daughter’s signs, she said.

“We posted a picture and got a lot of feedback from people who wanted them,” Chandler Guice said.

All of the proceeds from the posters and yard signs were donated to Faith in Action Alabama, a nonprofit, multifaith and multiracial organization that works toward systemic change in Alabama to create equal opportunities.

Chandler Guice said she tries to instill the value of acceptance and equality in all of her five children.

She said it’s important for them to not only promote unity but also to “stand up for unity and stand up for people who look different than us.”

However, it’s especially important for their family because she has an adopted son, Sam, who looks different from the rest of the family.

“I think he appreciates it, because it’s easy for us to go through daily life because he’s our kid and he’s her brother,” Chandler Guice said. “We don’t think about how he looks different from us, but at the same time, he’s around a bunch of white people, so I’m sure for him, he feels seen.”

Chandler and Mary Lee Guice both know the yard sign trend will eventually fade for the Homewood United project but will keep the project going to keep serving the community and promote unity in “smaller” ways.

Mary Lee Guice said she has a lot of big ideas of what that could look like.

She said she realizes everyone isn’t in a position to donate money, so she is thinking about hosting a volunteer event in Homewood.

“I personally enjoy that more,” she said. “Rather than just giving more money, I want what I’m doing to be tangible. I’m in Peer Helpers at Homewood Middle School, and Ms. Baldwin, the teacher that’s over Peer Helpers, said that Peer Helpers could partner with me sometime for a volunteer-type event, so I want to do one of those in the future.”