The Venice Community Housing Corp. (VCHC) is helping students at Mark Twain Middle School beautify their community with a Six Pillar mural, creatively using a Los Angeles County grant normally dedicated to graffiti abatement. Committed to providing low-income housing in the Los Angeles area, VCHC also runs a program to employ at-risk young people as ceramic artists. Called "Clay-Works," this three-year-old program recently received a $150,000 grant for its project at Mark Twain. As a CHARACTER COUNTS! Coalition member, Mark Twain had a ready-made theme for its mural, which covers an outside wall with clay medallions designed by students in Cheryl Townsend’s seventh and eighth grade art classes. The medallions represent the students’ self-portraits and their favorite Six Pillar values. The students prepared themselves for their medallion-making by discussing the everyday applicability of the values in classic fables. At the end of the school year, when all the medallions were finished, students helped ClayWorks artists install the elaborate 2,000-square-foot mosaic.

In the summer of 2000, while kids took a break from their studies, the city of Santa Clarita took adults to school. Over 250 parents participated in the third annual Parent University Conference and Workshops held in the northern Los Angeles County municipality, a CC! Coalition member. The one-day program provided parents with ideas to raise a child with good character and was run by the city’s department of parks, recreation, & community service. Marriage and family specialists discussed such topics as the impact of television on children, the long-term effects of bullying, "time-outs" for pre-schoolers, raising emotionally-intelligent children who can communicate their feelings, and using the Six Pillars in daily life.

All 24 branches of the Los Angeles Metropolitan YMCA are integrating the Six Pillars into after-school, child-care and youth sports programs.