‘Big Dave’ Hugs, High Fives His Way Across America

MILWAUKEE, WI — Can the world be changed one hug or, if you prefer, high five at a time? “Big Dave” Sylvester says he’s arrogant enough to believe he can shift America’s collective consciousness through the random servings of warmth, affection and goodwill he is dishing out in a 72-day road trip across the continental United States. The serial hugger from Philadelphia had been in 34 states by the time he arrived in Milwaukee Tuesday. He was headed to Chicago on Wednesday.

Sylvester’s tour was born in the rubble of the World Trade Center following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. He lost a longtime friend and mentor, Kevin Browser, when the twin towers tumbled, and he needed to do something to lighten his grief. In previous iterations of his hugging tour, he biked across North America, Africa, Asia and Australia. He also established a scholarship in his friend’s name.

He comes by the “Big Dave” moniker honestly, swallowing random strangers in his 6-foot, 3-inch 270-pound frame. When he does, he claims to leave “a nourishing kernel of happiness, will, warmth, understanding and wisdom,” according to his website. (For more local news, click here to sign up for real-time news alerts and newsletters from Milwaukee Patch, and click here to find your local Wisconsin Patch. If you have an iPhone, click here to get the free Patch iPhone app.)

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“I’m just going around trying to make the world smile, man,” he told Milwaukee Journal Sentinel columnist Jim Stingl. “That’s it, man.”

Before the “hug-storming” trip is over, Sylvester hopes to have embraced or high-fived 25,000 people. Stingl and Journal-Sentinel photographer Rick Wood were numbers 9,798 and 9,799, respectively. The hugs come with no real strings attached, beyond a simple request that they pass the hugs and high fives along.

Some friends tried to dispatch Big Dave to Charlottesville, Virginia, the scene of a deadly clash between white supremacists demonstrating against the removal of a Confederate statue and counter protesters. He declined.

“I was like, nah, any good I would do would be overshadowed by negative things and by the press,” he told the Journal Sentinel columnist. “I’m sorry. I need to be out here doing what I’m doing to show people this is America, too. Hugging and high-fiving people and making people smile, that is America, too.”

Sylvester has found fun and frivolity in his whirlwind hugging tour, but also people who have been beaten down by life or beset by tragedy. Big Dave likes to think hugs are cathartic for them.

He was in Jackson, Mississippi, in July when a plane carrying 15 Marines and a Navy sailor crashed, killing all on board. He was about to head to New Orleans when he heard about the crash, but headed to the site of the tragedy instead.

“I figured, why go and hug a bunch of people that probably are drunk and come here and try to embrace some people who really need it?” Sylvester told the Clarion-Ledger.

He also visited Orlando, Florida, where 49 people were killed and another 58 were wounded when a gunman opened fire at the Pulse nightclub in June 2016; a domestic violence shelter in Mobile, Alabama; and the small town of Olathe, Kansas, where a man accused of shooting an Indian national in June has been charged under hate crime statutes.

“Helping people wipe away their tears to find a way to smile has been an emotional undertaking, but each visit left me wanting to do more,” Sylvester wrote on a GoFundMe page to raise money to offset expense not covered by corporate sponsors MInnesota-based Duke Cannon Supply Inc., which sells men’s grooming products, and Advantage Rent-A-Car, which is providing vehicles for pilgrimage.

“Now, I can’t bring about world peace,” he wrote on the crowdfunding site, “but I can make a difference in a person’s day by offering a smile, a high five and … the perspective that life can move forward beyond the horrors of senseless violence.”

Sylvester asks people he has hugged or given a high five to post photos on social media with the hashtag #bigdavehugsamerica.

Below are a few of them.

You can read more about Big Dave’s big American hug-fest here.

Photo courtesy of Dave Sylvester