Lawrence Parade of Hearts installation spotlights disability inclusion downtown

A new six-foot heart at Massachusetts Street and North Park Street turned one of downtown Lawrence’s busiest corners into a public statement about disability inclusion. Installed next to South Park, the piece titled Inclusion Starts with the Heart put the message of belonging in the middle of a place residents and visitors cross every day.

The heart went up Monday, April 13, 2026, as part of the 2026 Parade of Hearts, a regional public art project that Easterseals Midwest says featured 150 heart sculptures across the Kansas City area. Launched in 2021, the free exhibition has spread art across the region, and Lawrence’s entry gives Douglas County a place in that larger circuit while tying the project directly to the city’s downtown identity.

Morgan Espinoza created the Lawrence heart with the Kansas City Individual Engagement Committee of Easterseals Midwest. The collaboration was built with professionals in the disability field and with individuals who have intellectual and developmental disabilities, including autism, and it was designed to make inclusion visible rather than implied. Easterseals Midwest said the project was selected from hundreds of entries across the region, underscoring how competitive the 2026 lineup was.

The committee’s leaders said the idea grew from lived experience. Will Wiley first envisioned entering the Parade of Hearts after learning about the call for artists, and he and AJ Olivarez shaped the message around a simple premise: inclusion is something people live and breathe every day. Cassi Weaver, the organization’s art coordinator, described the selection as a celebration of inclusion, creativity and the people who make the mission come alive.

The installation also lands in a part of Lawrence loaded with civic symbolism. City planning materials describe downtown as the city’s historic central business district and primary north-south artery, with Lawrence’s Downtown Commercial Historic District generally running along Massachusetts Street between 6th and South Park streets. Another city document says South Park was formed by combining four blocks into one park, placing the heart beside one of the city’s oldest shared public spaces.

That setting matters because public art does more than decorate. In a downtown where people shop, eat, walk and gather for events, Inclusion Starts with the Heart becomes a visible test of whether Lawrence’s public spaces reflect the disability inclusion it celebrates on paper. Easterseals Midwest says it has served people for more than 100 years across Illinois, Missouri and Kansas, and in Lawrence the new heart extends that mission into the daily landscape of South Park and Massachusetts Street.