Pure Joy: Two Playgrounds Dedicated
There are moments in this work that take your breath away. Watching the latest footage from our two newest playground dedications was one of them. Pure joy. That is the only way to describe what we saw on those children’s faces.
What Happened on the Ground
A field report from the playground dedication in Iraq.
On May 13, 2026, something beautiful happened. Two playgrounds were dedicated, installed, and brought fully to life in a single day of celebration. And when the children finally ran out onto their new play spaces for the very first time, it was the kind of moment you do not forget.
Our team spent the day with the children through the Good Life Program and Playground Dedication, and it was anything but a formal ceremony.
There was dancing. There were games. There was a giant parachute.
There were snacks, Reload Love shirts, and GLC bracelets passed out to little hands. And there were stories, real ones, shared by children who rarely get the chance to be heard.
One of those children was Honar.
Meet Honar
In his own words:
“I am 10 years old. I am from Shingal (Sinjar Mountain) and I love Shingal. I was born here because my family had to flee our home in Shingal in 2015 because of ISIS. Our family has not been able to return since that time, and now we live here in Khanke and I attend this school. I am an only child.
I want to say thank you to the people in America who helped put in this playground. I want to be a doctor when I grow up. I like to play football with my friends for fun. My favorite food is pizza.”
He is 10 years old. He wants to be a doctor. His favorite food is pizza.
And he has never been able to go home.
In 2017, Reload Love founders Lenya and Jen walked the streets of Shingal, the city Honar’s family was forced to flee. What they found was a ghost town. Demolished buildings. Mounds of rubble. A mass grave site.
The place Honar loves, the place he calls home even though he has never truly lived there, had been reduced to ash and silence.
To stand in those streets, and then to hear Honar’s story, and the stories of so many other families still living in displacement with hope for their children’s future, is to understand exactly why this work matters.
This Is What Your Generosity Does
Teachers and school administrators from both schools were present at the dedication, and they were deeply moved. They asked us, specifically, to pass along their gratitude. Their words:
“The playgrounds have brought so much joy to the children and have made a meaningful impact in their daily lives.”
None of this happens without you.
Every piece of jewelry purchased. Every casing donated. Every dollar given. It moves through our hands and lands in places like this, on playgrounds where children who have known far too much hardship finally get to just be kids.
Children like Honar, who dream of becoming a doctor, who love football and pizza, and who deserve a childhood worth remembering.
You did not just fund a playground. You funded the moment a child ran toward something instead of away from it.
That is the Reload Love mission in action. Bullets into beauty. Ashes into joy. One playground, one child, one moment of grace at a time.
Want to be part of the next one? Shop our jewelry, become a Ground Breaker, or make a direct donation.
Ready. Aim. Free.