October was a busy month for many of us including myself. As a nation was celebrated and promoted many important causes including breast cancer awareness, bullying prevention, Character Counts week, Ministers appreciation and a host of other holidays and causes. Maximizing Character participated and supported several events during the month. In addition to supporting other organizations, we engaged in a few activities of our own, in particular, during Character Counts Week (October 20-26, 2013). We had to be creative in our efforts to be actively involved in our community considering the fact that we are a new organization with no budget…yet.
During Character Counts Week we featured the Six Pillars of Character, created by Character Counts founder, Michael Josephson (www.charactercounts.org). Each day Maximizing Character highlighted a pillar of character, its meaning and its designated color on our Facebook and Twitter pages in order to encourage good character among all people. Members of Maximizing Character also wore the designated colors on several days in honor of the week. We participated in our second Girl Talk session and made Flowers for the Causes (check out the blog from earlier this month).
Maximizing Character also celebrated good character throughout the week on social media by featuring individuals and groups in the community that were making their Character Count. My son and Junior Executive Assistant joined The Young Men of Distinction group at his school during Character Counts Week. The program is a mentoring program for boys. Although he is already a kid who possesses good character…okay, I know I’m biased, my son reports that he is committed to the group’s principles including Academics, Discipline, Self-control, Perseverance and Uplift. We also featured my co-worker and her husband who had one of his trucks from his small business painted pink in support of Breast Cancer Awareness! Individuals had an opportunity to purchase magnets in honor of someone affected by breast cancer to place on the truck, too cool!
Maximizing Character participated in a breast cancer awareness seminar hosted by Sentara Healthcare, a nonprofit healthcare organization, in order to promote early detection and intervention. And finally, we featured and supported our dear friends, Parents Against Bullying of VA who hosted two major events this month, a Skate-A-Thon and their historic, 1st Annual 1000 Kid March Against Bullying at Hampton University. These events put the icing on the cake for a busy but productive month! Maximizing Character was honored to support and participate in the activities and events with organizations and people of like-minded spirits. We hope that next year, as we grow in membership and stature that we can continue to support these important and nationally recognized organizations as well as host a few events to promote good character and ethics, health and wellness and help reduce the incidents of violence such as bullying in our schools and communities.