SALT LAKE CITY — For sure there are plenty of differences among people, but Marian Howe-Taylor says there are many things that unite everyone as well.

"We may have different challenges, but we all seek to be loved and respected and given an equal opportunity for success," said the Salt Lake Community College special projects manager. "Everybody wants that. Everybody deserves that."

In a bid to promote that vision, tied to Martin Luther King Jr.'s Beloved Community concept, SLCC has teamed with local schools each year since 2015 as part of a photography initiative meant to get students thinking about the topic. The photography exhibit tied to the 2024-2025 effort opened Tuesday and will be on display through March 28.

Participating students "get to think who and sometimes what is beloved to them, and it ranges from people to a certain place that has a particular theme," said Howe-Taylor, who works with the kids on the project each year. "Every year the students are phenomenal."

Sixth-graders from Whittier Elementary and seventh- and eighth-graders from Glendale Middle School took part, first meeting with Howe-Taylor and others involved in the Beloved Community Project last fall. Their photographs, with artists' statements, are on display at SLCC's Eccles Art Gallery, 1575 S. State in Salt Lake City at the college's South City Campus. Both Whittier and Glendale are in Salt Lake City.

King's Beloved Community concept represents the civil rights icon's "vision for societies that embrace cooperation, unity and connection," reads the SLCC website about the project. The SLCC initiative, operated through its School of Arts, Communication and Media, aims to promote exploration of the concepts "and how they can be applied to our own communities."

One of the photographs from this year's installment features an apartment complex. Aside from learning about the Beloved Community concept, participating students get cameras to take pictures that reflect their understanding of the topic.

The building is "a beautiful piece of our community, and even though it isn't what everyone wants it to be, it deserves a shot," photographer Lou C., of Whittier Elementary, wrote in his statement. It's "a place where people live and love."

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Zaki A., of Glendale Middle School, took a picture of a tree. The tree represents "how a community can grow and become bigger than what it was originally," reads the student's statement.

Howe-Taylor, who grew up in Boston in the 1960s surrounded by civil rights activists of the time, draws from King's six principles of nonviolence in contending with injustice and evil as part of the initiative. Bullying is an issue in schools, she said, and one of the visions through the project is to get students to see each other through another lens. "You may not like somebody, but you need to love them for humankind's sake," she said.

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