The Story Behind Hope Beyond Borders

Every project begins with a question.

For singer-songwriter Jerry Leggett, that question once took him across the United States in a small traveling music venue known as the Peace Bubble Café.

In 2007–2008, Jerry organized the Peace Bubble Tour, a journey that included more than 200 stops in forty states and visits to 20 U.S. national parks and landmarks. The small yellow trailer became a mobile gathering place where people could sing, reflect, and share their hopes for the future.

With a modest video camera in hand, Jerry interviewed thousands of people along the way, asking a simple question:

“What does a more peaceful world look like for you?”

Throughout the journey he carried a simple mantra:

“If you want peace in your world, make space for it.”

A Life of Peace Advocacy

Music has always been part of Jerry’s life, but so has his work as a peace advocate.

Earlier in his career he served as Director of the International Peace Museum in Dayton, Ohio—one of the few museums in the United States dedicated to the history and culture of peacebuilding.

Since his teenage years Jerry has felt called to stand alongside people whose lives have placed them in harm’s way or at the margins of society—people whose voices are often unheard and whose stories risk disappearing.

Through music and storytelling, he has tried to help create space for those stories to be heard.

The Peacebuilder Hub Tour

In 2018, Jerry was invited to help launch the Hub Peacebuilder Tour for the Rotarian Action Group for Peace.

Traveling up and down the West Coast and eventually across the country to Atlanta, Jerry used the small traveling Peacebuilder Hub as a portable gathering space where conversations about peace could begin.

He sang at Rotary clubs, home gatherings, conferences, and community events, eventually bringing the Hub to the Atlanta Convention Center, where thousands of Rotarians experienced the project.

The tour began in a memorable setting at the Evergreen Air & Space Museum in McMinnville, Oregon.

There, Jerry performed atop the tiny Hub trailer beneath the enormous Spruce Goose aircraft—a powerful visual contrast between something massive and something small.

It was a reminder that sometimes the biggest ideas begin in the smallest spaces.

Storytrail Garden

Years later, these experiences helped inspire the creation of Storytrail Garden in Tubac, Arizona.

Located in a town whose motto is “Where Art & History Meet,” the garden was designed as a place where art, sculpture, and storytelling lift up the often-overlooked stories of peace and justice.

Visitors walking the garden encounter sculptures and installations that celebrate Peace Heroes—individuals whose everyday acts of compassion strengthen their communities.

The garden reflects a simple belief:

Many of the most important stories in our world are the ones that almost disappear.

From Garden to Concert Tour

The Hope Beyond Borders concert program grew naturally from that vision.

Through music and storytelling, Jerry brings the spirit of Storytrail Garden into communities across the Southwest.

Each concert becomes a gathering place where audiences explore empathy, courage, and connection across the lines that divide us.

Many events also include recognition of a local Peace Hero, reminding audiences that the stories worth honoring are often already present within their own communities.

Music as a Gathering Place

In this way, the music becomes more than a performance.

It becomes a place where stories can be shared, where people can listen more deeply to one another, and where communities rediscover the humanity they hold in common.

And perhaps most importantly, it becomes an invitation:

to listen more carefully
to honor the courage around us
and to help ensure that the stories which almost disappear are never truly lost.

Where Stories of Courage Become Songs of Hope