A local TV station administered by Des Moines Public Schools recently profiled Morris Elementary School's basketball program, which emphasizes the Six Pillars of Character and good sportsmanship.

View the video on the station's website:
http://channel12.dmps.k12.ia.us/stories/0703/n-070314video.html

(Note: Your browser might block an Active-X control, which you must enable in order to view this video. To run the control, right-click on the warning message near the top of the screen in your browser.)

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Several mayors and county supervisors have signed proclamations declaring October 21-27 as CHARACTER COUNTS! week in Dickinson County. It is also their intention to conduct their meetings exhibiting the Six Pillars of Character.

All Dickinson County schools will recognize the Six Pillars with buttons, Character colors, t-shirts, class projects and assemblies. Individuals and businesses can offer their support with signage as well as recognition and acknowledgement of good character in youth.

Continue reading "Dickinson County, IA: CC! Week Goes Countywide" »

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The steering committee of Urbandale CHARACTER COUNTS!, a project team of the Urbandale Action Council, has called upon candidates for election to the Urbandale City Council to make a public pledge of their commitment to the practice of good character in the current political campaign and in their term of public service, should they be elected.

Continue reading "Urbandale, IA: Steering Committee Candidates' Pledge Signing Event" »

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Cody Elementary in LeClaire, Iowa conducted a walkathon promoting healthy living and good nutrition. The PTA sponsored the event and raised money to get the walkers T-shirts in the colors of the Six Pillars of Character. The students used their walkathon funds to get a climbing wall for their playground.

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This year the Institute for Character Development at Drake University is celebrating 10 years of service to Iowa. One of the events showcasing our work with CHARACTER COUNTS! in Iowa took place on Friday, March 9 when the ICD hosted its first fundraising event at the Hy-Vee Conference Center. Over 500 people attended the event that was sponsored by McAninch Corporation and presented by Wells Fargo.

At the event, Coach Hayden Fry was presented with the Robert D. Ray Pillar of Character Award to honor his lifetime achievements in relation to his commitment to civility and character development.

The event was a great success in leveraging financial resources necessary to continue our work to impact the lives of Iowans. We also recognized an individual who has made a great impact on securing the future of the Institute as the largest contributor to our endowment. This person, who wishes to remain anonymous, has for the second time, made a matching pledge of $1 million to our endowment.

Michael Josephson, founder of CHARACTER COUNTS!, was on hand and stated in his remarks, “I come here to pay tribute to all of you and to acknowledge the great achievement of 10 years of ever-increasing impact of CHARACTER COUNTS! in Iowa. And I come hear to remind you that however far we have come there is still so much more to do. I ask you to imagine how much better things can be if we continue to strengthen our individual and collective character. I ask you to imagine a society where civility, honor and selfless service prevailed in every corner of every community. If you are a volunteer I ask you to find additional ways to strengthen the CC! movement. If you are a donor I ask you to double or more your gifts with knowledge that your resources are building a better world. If you are a sponsor I ask you to be aggressively creative in finding new and broader ways to collaborate in this great venture.”

Over 30 athletes and coaches were on hand to help honor coach Fry. Many of these individuals took time to participate in an All-Star Meet and Greet event on Saturday, March 10 where they signed autographs and took time to discuss good character with over 700 parents and youth.

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At a recent CHARACTER COUNTS! Task Force meeting, members received an update on the pocket park/rest stop project. The CHARACTER COUNTS! Task Force is developing six rest stops (one for each of the six pillars) on the recreational trail that winds through the Industrial Park on the west edge of New Hampton. Construction of the rest stops began last summer and they will be completed in the spring of 2007…

The pocket park will serve as a living memorial to the Six Pillars of CHARACTER COUNTS! the guiding principles of the youth in this community…

Task force members are seeking grants and other donations to fund this $50,000 project…

Over 300 hours of volunteer work have been donated and several thousand dollars of in-kind donations have been offered. Task Force members will continue to receive donations through the completion of this project…

The above excerpts are from an article that ran in NorthEast Iowa Focus. Read the full article here.

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Juana Reynard, a CHARACTER COUNTS! organizer in Audubon, Iowa, sent this photo of a Christmas tree local 4-H groups displayed at a recent fundraiser. The CC! tree is now bringing good cheer to a school in the area.

The tree elicited many positive comments, said Ms. Reynard. She especially enjoyed seeing children recognize the ornaments and hearing them exclaim, "We have CHARACTER COUNTS! at our school!"

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Six New Hampton High School students were chosen to attend the 2006 Pursuing Victory With Honor Summit held at the Iowa Memorial Union on the University of Iowa campus on Wednesday, November 29.

The event was an opportunity for students and coaches to learn more about Pursuing Victory With Honor. Topics throughout the day centered on ways to develop good character and promote sportsmanship through the Six Pillars of CHARACTER COUNTS!...

“Our activities programs are a vital component in our educational setting and they play a big part in helping to produce students who are good citizens…We will continue to use events such as this to help supplement the great job that our coaches and sponsors do in promoting the CHARACTER COUNTS! program within our district,” said Activities Director Kelly O'Donnell.

The above excerpts are from an article that ran in NorthEast Iowa Focus. Read the full article here.

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The Ames Chamber of Commerce reminds visitors that CHARACTER COUNTS! every day by featuring Six Pillar pictures in the conference room.

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The Josephson Institute’s Board of Governors was paid a visit by some special guests while attending a board meeting in Des Moines, Iowa. The Iowa Youth Training Core stopped by to participate in some CC! activities and get to know the board members a little better. The activities and presentations were led by JI’s national faculty member Kay Augustine (Associate Director, Institute for Character Development at Drake University), Wendy Havemann (Youth Involvement Coordinator, ICD at Drake University), and Scott Raecker, Executive Director, ICD at Drake University.

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On April 21, the Institute for Character Development at Drake University recognized local CHARACTER COUNTS! role models for their work. The Des Moines Register reported that 14 individuals and organizations earned awards for exemplifying the Six Pillars of Character. These honorees were recognized in front of an audience of nearly 850 people at a banquet held in their honor.

An additional article in the Des Moines Register spotlighted Iowa’s Character Administrator Award, honoring Urbandale school district superintendent Greg Robinson. This strong commitment to the Six Pillars of Character led a selection committee of 43 volunteers to select Robinson over 14 other nominees. Robinson consistently demonstrates a passion for each of his student’s success, and he has become a role model to the community he impacts as an educator. Robinson accepted the award from former Governor Robert D. Ray.

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Students at Hillis Elementary School last month discovered caring can be fun. In a canned food drive in conjunction with CC!, grade levels competed against one another in to see who could donate more food to the Food Bank of Iowa.

The fifth-graders emerged triumphant, donating 222 items out of more than 600 the school brought in. Afterward, principal Larry Streyffeler told the school assembly he was proud of the students’ efforts. “CHARACTER COUNTS! stresses respect and appreciation,” he was quoted as saying in the Des Moines Register. “Service is an important part of life. This was a way we could reach out and help those less fortunate.”

Among the givers were Billie Jo Brown, a nine-year-old fourth-grader, and Jake Hollister, an eight-year-old third-grader, both from Des Moines’ west side. Brown donated her entire piggybank to the food pantry. Jake summed up the event best by saying, “I learned it’s fun to care and it’s fun to help others.”

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In a surprising sweep, three fifth-graders from the same class at Wright Elementary School took home statewide honors for their grade level in a Foundations for Life essay contest sponsored by CHARACTER COUNTS!.

Illya Davydov, 11, Kimberly Johnson, 11, and Summer Manley, 10, chose their topics from among several quotes, then wrote about what the sayings meant to them. The quote Kimberly chose (“Don’t cry because it’s over; smile because it happened”) inspired her to pen a touching piece about her deceased grandfather and how she and her younger sister drew pictures on his door while he was in the hospital so he wouldn’t be lonely.

Nearly as happy as the students was their fifth-grade teacher, Barbara Morrison, who asked the trio to write their essays in class rather than at home. “I wanted it to be their words,” she told the Des Moines Register.

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Students and faculty of Riverdale Heights Elementary celebrated their 10th year anniversary in CC! style. First, they had an all-school picture, in which over 690 students and faculty lined up in the shape of the Six Pillars.

The event also included a walk-a-thon fundraiser and Six Pillar t-shirts for students, sponsored by the PTA. The school has a community garden with CC!-related steppingstones, and it plays Aretha Franklin’s “R-E-S-P-E-C-T” during passing periods.

In addition, every adult employed at the building is responsible for a "troupe" of nine to 10 students from kindergarten through sixth grade. These troupes are "small families" within the school, and each month every one has a meeting focused on one of the Pillars.

"We had a great time with the event and continue to celebrate the Pillars of Character," said principal Jim Wichman.

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The Nevada Police Department will receive a $2,200 grant for CC! training from the Community Foundation of Greater Story County. Nevada Police Chief Michael Tupper said Nevada community members can also take part in the training. The Department will use a small slice of the funds to buy CC! decals for police vehicles.

Chief Tupper gives much credit for the grant to Pam Carnine. "I'm proud of the work Pam put into writing the grant," Mr. Tupper told the Nevada Journal. "She did an outstanding job, and we couldn't have done it without her."

CC! Nevada chairman Mark Frideres called CC! "an awesome forum to teach kids valuable life skills and lessons," and added, "Of course it is used extensively in the Nevada schools, but also it is utilized by the businesses, churches and city programs. For example the Parks and Rec Board uses Pursuing Victory With Honor in their calendars and has signs in the local parks displaying the character Pillars. There is a downtown business owner that let us paint a character mural on the side of his building."

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Sixth-grade students at Merrill Elementary held their first CC! luncheon for pupils of outstanding character in the week of October 13, according to the Des Moines Register. Parents also attended the event.

At Wright Elementary, the Character Council collected hurricane relief donations from homerooms to give to the American Red Cross. Members also raised money for CC! Thursdays at the Student Store to help pay for assemblies and activities.

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Among the September 2005 CC! events at Urbandale schools, according to the Des Moines Register:

• Summit Middle. Students learned about the U.S. Constitution and began using the Six Pillars to develop a constitution for the school. All students will help, and should therefore have a sense of ownership about it and responsibility for applying it.
• Dallas Center-Grimes High. The school added Student of the Week to its Student Pillar of the Month program. Peers or teachers nominate students who display the Pillars, and workplace readiness teacher Scott Heitland will reveal the boy and girl who win either front-row parking spaces for the week or a ticket to go to the head of the lunch line. The first four CC! winners were Andrea Cain, Nathan Comes, Katie Minnich and Aaron Stover.
• St. Joseph. The CC! kickoff rally took place Friday, September 23 in the gym. Respect is the Pillar for October, and parents, staff and students can nominate young people "Caught Being Good." Students also donated $1,000 for Hurricane Katrina relief.

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At Fairmeadows Elementary, Ronald McDonald entertained students in grades two through five, in a September 2005 assembly promoting CC!. The friendly clown conveyed the Pillars with magic puppets, skits, and songs, according to the Des Moines Register, and kids got into the act as well.

At Sacred Heart, eighth-graders presented a CC! assembly, describing the Pillars to the student body.

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"At the end of the day, we have students sit in a closing circle," said youth involvement coordinator Wendy Havemann in November, 2004, about Iowa 's Youth Training Core (YTC). "And we've had kids say we've changed there lives."

The trainers who evoke this reaction are the 32 high school students in the Core, a project of the Institute for Character Development at Drake University in Des Moines. The students crisscross the state showing other youths how to make good choices. "It's a powerful day," says Ms. Havemann.

"Response has been fabulous," she adds. High schoolers are harder to reach with the character message than younger kids, and the YTC cuts through the barrier.

What's the secret? These youths have received extensive training in CC! facilitation skills, but that's just the start. "The power of youths talking to other youths is absolutely phenomenal," says Ms. Havemann. "If I stood there and said the same words, it wouldn't have the same impact." The YTC members also can tell stories of times they've used the Six Pillars to calm difficult situations, or faced a tough decision and negotiated it successfully with the Pillars. "It's just more relevant to students."

YTC trainers cover all of the Six Pillars, using a three-step process. They present knowledge, then an activity, and then analyze the activity through Pillars. "We actually help youth to discover how to process choices through the Pillars," Ms. Havemann says.

Her daughter has become a YTC member. "She REALLY likes it," Ms. Havemann observes. "In the two years I've been here, I have seen a lot of youth show tremendous growth -- in character, in belief in what they say, in leadership. And to date, 100 percent of YTC students have gone on to college. So it's a real self-esteem builder as well."

It has also affected her own life. "It raises the bar for me. I have to act extra carefully regarding the Six Pillars. I know if I did something really wrong, I'd be a phony," she says. "But I also get to work with youth who are very, very good, working hard to do the right thing. It enables me to feel very optimistic about the culture here."

For more information about the program, go to: http://www.drake.edu/icd/Youth_Involvement_YTC.htm

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Students got spiffy for CC! Week at New Hampton Elementary, during May 3-11, 2004. They held special dress-up days, such as Tie In to Trustworthiness, Turn Your Back on Disrespect, and Count on Caring. In addition, students:

• Enjoyed special programs and heard speakers.

• Created daily journal entries for each Pillar and compiled them into a rainbow book.

• Frosted sugar cookies with rainbows in the Six Pillar colors.

• Took walking tours to view CC! banners hung along the school’s street.

• Hosted a canned food drive, cleaned up a parking lot and carried out other citizenship projects.

The town actively joined in. The mayor issued a special proclamation for the city and the local Fareway grocery store printed the Six Pillars on its bags. And the New Hampton Tribune ran articles on the events.

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Webster City Middle School held CHARACTER COUNTS! for World Peace Week on March 17-21, 2003. Highlights included:

Monday — Classroom doors bore decorations for the CHARACTER COUNTS! for World Peace theme. Each grade had a 15- minute assembly, and later the seventh and eighth grades hosted military personnel from Fort Dodge.

Tuesday — The seventh and eighth grades hosted military personnel from Fort Dodge.

Wednesday — A military helicopter landed north of the middle school and provided tours. A seventh and eighth grade pops concert took place at WCMS.

Thursday — High school students joined the students for lunch, and the school hosted the “Game of Takor Demonstration.”

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CHARACTER COUNTS! through the Arts! is a new partnership between the Iowa Arts Council (a division of the Iowa Department of Cultural Affairs) and the Institute for Development at Drake University. It gives artists training in CHARACTER COUNTS! concepts and language. They then use their talents to illustrate character lessons in schools and communities.

At Inauguration Day at the Iowa State Capitol, on January 17, 2003, students from several Des Moines elementary schools helped paint stained-glass-like patterns for a mural they'd designed based on the Six Pillars of Character. Dennis Adams, an Iowa Arts Council artist trained in CC!, worked with the students.

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An intense four-day training took place in June 2002 for over 30 new members of Iowa's Youth Training Core (YTC) for Character. The kids stayed in the Drake University dorms, ate at the campus dining room, and learned more about the Pillars of Character, leadership training, trust activities, school and community panel discussions, and various strategies and techniques. They also practiced their presentation skills.

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An intense four-day training took place in June 2002 for over 30 new members of Iowa's Youth Training Core (YTC) for Character. The kids stayed in the Drake University dorms, ate at the campus dining room, and learned more about the Pillars of Character, leadership training, trust activities, school and community panel discussions, and various strategies and techniques. They also practiced their presentation skills.

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Forty-mile-an-hour winds and freezing temperatures forced Eagle Grove’s CC! Week 2001 rally inside the gym. But the chill outside didn’t damper the enthusiasm of the packed crowd within as they welcomed former Governor Robert D. Ray, chairman of the board for the Institute for Character Development, as keynote speaker.

The rally, the second of its kind in Eagle Grove, began with students waving streamers and doing cheers for the Six Pillars of Character. High school students, paired with those from elementary and middle school, danced on the gym floor to the “Six Pillar Shuffle.”  Essay winners in each building level explained why they believe that CHARACTER COUNTS! Elementary students were featured soloists in “Six Simple Words” and the high school drill team performed to “Character Counts!.”.

Former Governor Ray received a rousing ovation when he took the podium and said, “I always knew I really liked eagles, but now I love them!”  He challenged all students and adults to "say one ‘Thank you,’ or do something nice for someone every day.” Scott Raecker, executive director for the I.C.D., took the stage and challenged the high school students to model good character for all of the younger children.

Eagle Grove Community School is in its third year of integrating the CHARACTER COUNTS! throughout the district.  I.C.D. staff members trained the teaching staff prior to the 1999-00 school year and follow-up trainings have continued.  In the fall of 2001, all office staff, custodians, cooks and bus drivers received training in the CC! framework.

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“We wanted to be in the Guinness Book of World Records for something, so we had to figure out what,” says CC! coordinator Pam Bunte. Hence she and other youth leaders created a giant vinyl bookmark, three feet wide by sixteen feet long. It reads “CHARACTER COUNTS!” and lists the Six Pillars of Character below. The mammoth object hung in the Fort Dodge public library throughout CC! Week, and over 900 children and even a few parents signed their names on it. The most common question was: “How big is the book it’s marking?”

Building it was one thing and getting into the Guinness Book was another.  When Bunte contacted Guinness officials, she found they didn’t have a category for largest bookmark — though they do for biggest chicken dance (72,000 people) and largest four-leaf clover collection. Bunte persisted, talking with the Guinness people until they agreed to review the matter. “At least we haven’t been turned down,” she says.

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The Institute for Character Development (ICD) at Drake University in Des Moines has long cultivated partnerships between schools, communities and civic organizations through the Iowa Youth Character Awards and various character-development training seminars. 

In 2001 the ICD selected a Youth Training Core of 13 members from a pool of high school students in the greater Des Moines area. These individuals took part in an intensive, 60-hour training program, including the Trust Walk, and are now available to work with groups of youth in schools implementing character education.

The Youth Training Core has undertaken a variety of trainings and activities, including:

• In-service training for high school faculty and staff
• Presentations to high school classes
• Presentations at elementary school assemblies
• Presentation to the ICD training team members
• Training middle school students to use activities with CC! during their advisor/advisee times
• Training high school students in the character message and empowering them to take a leadership role in their schools
• Helping decorate the ICD tree at the Festival of Trees and Lights, a benefit for Blank Children's Hospital
• Speaking at meetings of civic and service organizations

During CC! Week 1998, some 240 elementary students gathered at the State Historical Building for an all-day celebration hosted by the ICD. The Des Moines police department rock band "Legal Limit," played, a proclamation from the governor was read, and students from Clegg Park School put on a performance. Ronald McDonald also visited with his Six Pillar-based show "On the Inside." In addition, libraries and elementary schools throughout the state showed the CC! Coalition’s "Kids for Character" children’s video, coordinated litter-removal activities and displayed books focusing on ethics and character.

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In Fort Dodge, where the CC! logo is on everything from police cars to grocery bags, CC! Week 2000 was a community-wide event. Radio spots by former Governor Robert D. Ray publicized the week, the mayor issued a proclamation, Six Pillar posters were distributed to churches, schools, businesses and prisons along with packets of discussion questions, and Peggy North-Jones gave a lecture entitled “Parenting in the New Millennium,” which was free to the public.

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