Friday E-dition: Pro-Inclusion Napa Makes Its Values Visible
By Sasha Paulsen
Summary: Pro-Inclusion Napa began as a response to hate-filled yard signs and has grown into a broader effort centered on respect, acceptance and kindness. Led by longtime residents Joanne Sutro and Laura Keller, the group has distributed 1,100 bilingual yard signs, guided students in creating more than 500 posters and secured long-term support from local schools and community organizations. Its next phase will bring residents together through workshops designed to encourage conversation across differences. The Napa City Council recognized the group’s work July 21 with a proclamation honoring its contribution to a more welcoming city.
“We’re not trying to change anyone. We’re trying to give voice to the rest of us who don’t use that hatred and divisive language. It’s a way to express something that’s positive. To be a voice that uplifts.” — Laura Keller
Pro-Inclusion Napa Makes Its Values Visible
by Sasha Paulsen
NAPA VALLEY, Calif. — The signs began popping up just after the new year, 2026, began. Bright blue with a band of orange, they were hard to miss. What was most eye-catching, however, were the words, just three on each side. In English “Respect, acceptance, kindness” and in Spanish “Respeto, aceptación, amabilidad.”
In a new election year, these were signs of a different kind of campaign: no political parties, no tribes, just an idea borne of a wish: that positive voices might prevail in our fractured, tohubohu times.
Longtime Napa residents Joanne Sutro and Laura Keller, are the masterminds behind Pro-Inclusion Napa, which grew into a three-part approach to countering hate-filled speech with yard signs, a countywide student poster project and upcoming workshops to help residents bridge the space between them.
So successful have the two women and a dynamic group of volunteers been that the Napa City Council honored them on July 21 with a proclamation lauding their work to help fulfill the mission of making Napa a welcoming, inclusive city.
“It all began in 2022,” Sutro said. “I read about a house on Browns Valley Road where the owner was putting out terrible, hate-filled signs in his yard, but the city couldn’t stop him. I thought, if they can’t make him take those signs down, what could they do? A vision popped into my brain — one house with hateful signage and then the whole street with positive messages.”
Sutro moved to Napa more than two decades ago as part of the opening team for Copia, the American Center for Food, Wine and the Arts in 2001. She stayed on in Napa after Copia’s subsequent closure and sale to the Culinary Institute of American and became active in the nonprofit sector, supporting arts, media and healthcare organizations.
Keller recently retired after 32 years of working with Napa County Public Health as director of public health for nursing maternal, child and adolescent care. She is married to actor, writer and activist Peter Coyote.
Both women were members of the Center for Spiritual Living in Napa.
“We are very clear that we are not a religious group at all and we’re not political,” Sutro said. “We are all-inclusive.”
The topic of the hate signs came up at their book club as they discussed what to do about the rise in these incidents. Because the Browns Valley signs were so openly antisemitic, they contacted Rabbi Niles Goldstein of Napa’s Congregation Beth Shalom. Goldstein invited them to a town hall meeting with Napa City Manager Steve Potter to discuss what can and cannot be done in cases where one person’s protected free speech is a message of hatred for another group.
“Our whole book group went,” Keller said. “When we got to the Q and A, Joanne talked about the yard sign idea and everyone was like, ‘Yes!’ When the meeting was over, 50 people wanted to sign up to help on the project.”
That was just the beginning. Buoyed by the reinforcement of their notion that the loudest, most disturbing voices don’t represent the majority of people, they called a meeting.
“We went through the process of identifying what our mission is, what our core values are,” Sutro said. “We wanted it to be thoughtful. We created our name —Pro-inclusion Napa.”
Their goal: “Make our values visible. Don’t let hate have the last word.”
The Poster Project
As they planned the sign project, their work took a detour.
“We were invited to make a presentation at Browns Valley School,” Keller said. They decided that rather than just talking, they would invite the students to create something — posters — reflecting their own thoughts on key words.
One of their earliest supports was then-Napa County Superintendent of Schools Barbara Nemko, who retired in 2025.
One of the first things Nemko did was to help them narrow their key words from 80 potential ones to three: respect, acceptance, kindness.
“You can tell kids ‘Be nice,’” Nemko said, “and it can go in one ear and out the other. But if they do something, then they are in.”
Keller and Sutro made their first school visit on Martin Luther King Day, introduced the three words and challenged the fifth-grade students with three questions.
“We asked them to choose one of the three words,” Keller said. “We said, suppose the word you pick is kindness. The first question is how can I be more kind to myself? Second is how can I be more kind to people I know? And the third is how can I be more kind to people I don’t know, the stranger, the opponents?”
Then they provided the supplies, and the students filled the school gym to create their posters.
“Kids understand what’s going in the world,” she said. “They think about it, and so this was an opportunity to do something.”
It would be the first of many visits the pair have made to schools that included New Tech, Napa High, Willow and Valley Oak.
Keller described one early visit to New Tech.
“We were there at 8 in the morning. We had a video. The kids were sitting there in their hoodies. They made no eye contact. When we left, I said, ‘Oh, that didn’t go anywhere.’ And then the kids made the most beautiful posters.” Sutro added: “They were listening.”
They now have more than 500 colorful posters, many of which have been displayed around town, sharing their upbeat messages: “Love is in you!” “Being kind is free.” “Respect+Acceptance+Kindness=A better world. It starts with you.” “Bee Kind!” “You will grow wings.” “Do the right thing: Kill them with kindness.”
Right now, the posters are on display in the lobby at Napa City Hall and the art gallery adjacent to La Toque restaurant at the Westin Verasa Hotel.
“Chef Ken Frank has been a great supporter,” Sutro said. “He said that of all the artwork they’ve put up over the years, the posters have gotten the most comments. They put up the first posters in September 2025. Typically, they leave their shows up for a quarter, but they left this one up and asked us if we want to just change out posters. These new ones will be there till August.”
The Napa Valley Unified School District, which initially gave them a required one-year contract to do the posters, renewed it with a five-year agreement.
“The positive poster project has been great and inspiring, and we’re still doing it,” Sutro said. “We plan to go to more schools. Even at the younger level, kids see a lot of things that go on at school. They get what it is when it’s not inclusive.”
It underlines what’s behind Pro-Inclusion Napa.
“We’re not trying to change anyone,” Keller said. “We’re trying to give voice to the rest of us who don’t use that hatred and divisive language. It’s a way to express something that’s positive. To be a voice that uplifts.”
Today’s Puzzler: Grammar on the Docket
Legal titles can make strange grammatical bedfellows. Pick the correct plural, then find the answer at the bottom of the page.
Back to the yard signs
With posters underway, it was time to get back to the yard-signs project. Looking for support, Keller and Sutro found an unexpected partnership.
“We didn’t want to start a 501(c)(3),” Sutro said. “But we needed a fiscal sponsor.”
They were astonished – delightedly – by the response of Napa Valley Can Do, an all-volunteer service organization founded in 2008 by Hilary Zunin, inspired by Barack Obama’s “Yes, we can” message and hoping to translate that into action in Napa County.
“They said, ‘Instead of being a fiscal sponsor, we want you to be become a program of Can Do.’”
“We also got wonderful support from Community Projects, who gave us two grants to help pay for printing,” Keller said.
With the signs in production, they began showing up everywhere from farmers markets to churches to introduce the signs and sign up people willing to display them.
“We wondered how many we should print,” Sutro said. “We decided 400, although we thought 400 was aspirational. We started giving out signs in mid-December, but we said, ‘Don’t put your signs out till Jan. 1.’ By Dec. 13, we had to put in another order.”
To date they have distributed 1,100.
“We focused on Napa because this is where we live and where we saw the biggest problems,” Sutro said. “But there are signs in American Canyon, St. Helena, Calistoga, Novato, Fairfield, Orange County, LA County. We’re not going to say no. We’re locally focused, but if the message goes farther, that’s OK.”
“People have told us that when they put out their signs neighbors have come to ask about them,” Keller said. “They wanted to get one, too, so it opens up conversations.”
Sutro said that a woman at the Napa farmers market told them she had gotten a UPS delivery and the driver came up to her house and thanked her. He said he felt safer in the neighborhood when he saw the sign.
“Kindness and acceptance – it’s hard to argue with,” Keller said. “There have been a few people object, but for the most part, it’s positive.”
Coming up: Workshops
Pro-Inclusion Napa is getting ready to launch a third project — workshops where people can come together and make connections.
“It’s a way for people to think, ‘Maybe we have something in common.’” Sutro said. “It’s a fundamental thing that is so important — treating people with respect. You don’t have to agree with everything. It’s just a way we can interact with others.”
Keller added, “When you think about what is going on in the world, it’s really dire, really divisive, but the thing is the only way to heal is through relationships. The yard-sign and poster projects are ways for people to connect and start conversations with other people.”
Or as Nemko put it: “We don’t want the people who hate to drown out the people who love.”
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Sasha Paulsen is a journalist and novelist who lives in Napa.
Pro-Inclusion Napa: Upcoming Events and Sign Information
The next general members meeting of Pro-Inclusion Napa will be at 5:30 p.m. on Tuesday, Aug. 18, at the Napa Methodist Church, 625 Randolph St. Parking will be in the lot on Division Street behind the church.
The yard signs are free, but donations are accepted to support their ongoing projects. To receive a sign, fill out Pro-Inclusion Napa’s online form or email pro-inclusionnapa@nvcand.org.
Today’s Polls:
Poem of the Day:
“Gitanjali 35”
By Rabindranath Tagore
Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high; Where knowledge is free; Where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls; Where words come out from the depth of truth; Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection; Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into the dreary desert sand of dead habit; Where the mind is led forward by thee into ever-widening thought and action Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.
About the author: Rabindranath Tagore, an Indian and Bengali poet, composer, educator and artist, lived from 1861 to 1941 and wrote amid the cultural and political ferment of the Bengal Renaissance. In 1913, he became the first non-European recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature, an honor awarded largely for “Gitanjali.” He also founded Visva-Bharati, an experimental university in Santiniketan, and composed more than 2,000 songs in the tradition now known as Rabindra Sangeet.
Originally written in Bengali as “Chitto Jetha Bhayshunyo” and published in the 1910 collection “Naivedya,” the poem was later translated by Tagore for the English-language “Gitanjali.” Its free-verse prayer joins spiritual aspiration with a civic vision, using parallel phrasing, direct address and the image of a world divided by “narrow domestic walls” to argue for intellectual freedom, truth and human connection. Those qualities reflect Tagore’s broader work, which often brought lyric simplicity, philosophical inquiry and social conscience into the same frame.
Are you a poet, or do you have a favorite piece of verse you’d like to share? Napa Valley Features invites you to submit your poems for consideration in this series. Email your submissions to napavalleyfeatures@gmail.com with the subject line: “Poem of the Day Submission.” Selected poets will receive a one-year paid subscription to Napa Valley Features (a $60 value). We can’t wait to hear from you.
Today’s Caption Contest:
Pick your favorite caption or add your own in the comments below.
Possible Captions:
“We may have overplanned the pond.”
“I’m not saying it’s slow, but…”
“None of these flags feel legally binding.”
“We should have invited someone with thumbs.”
“I’m just trying to get our ducks in a row.”
Last Week’s Contest Results:
In “UpStage Napa Valley Brings Timely Thriller ‘Gaslight’ to St. Helena and Calistoga,” the winning caption was “After years of obedience training, the final exam had arrived,” with 50% of the votes.
Caption Options:
“He had ordered the large.”
“It looked innocent, but so had the vacuum cleaner.”
“After years of obedience training, the final exam had arrived.”
“The tiny altar demanded a sacrifice. Preferably bacon-flavored.”
“At last, a dessert that understood his cultural heritage.”
Today’s Puzzler: Answer + Explanation:
Attorneys general
In this title, attorney is the noun and general modifies it, so the noun takes the plural form. The same pattern appears in terms such as courts-martial and mothers-in-law.
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The views, opinions and data presented in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy, position or perspective of Napa Valley Features or its editorial team. Any content provided by our authors is their own and is not intended to malign any group, organization, company or individual.
Our illustrations are produced through a multistep process of generative tools, digital sketching and photo editing, often starting from our own images or sketches.
Excellent! Sasha once again draws attention to what community is really about. Kudos to NVF for reminding us as well what community ought to be about.
Great project! Great article Sasha!