welcome everyone to peter's township in this little building and welcome to the peters township character counts spring recognition awards sponsored by peter sound chip characters counts committee my name is tom gromek i'm the assistant to the township manager at peter's township i'm joined by greg mark wist assistant principal of mcmurray elementary and blair store principal at mcmurray elementary the character counts recognition award is designed to recognize the peters township residents and organizations that have demonstrated their commitment to the ideals of respect responsibility and honesty these people can be of any age and from any walk of life there are a number of people who meet the character counts schools on a regular basis and are never publicly recognized tonight we take the time to recognize nine individuals who are most deserving of this award our first recipient is jackie rival jackie was nominated by carolyn gentile carolyn is known jackie for over twenty years for the first work together at south hills in her face in her interfaith ministries the main reason she nominated jackie was for a creation of food and friends through the community connections programs food and friends an outreach program which meets at thomas presbyterian church to serve hot meals to friends and neighbors in venetia finleyville hackett and gas the style which food and friends serve the community is the most welcoming there's a hostess that greets the gas a server who delivers the food to each table that's covered with a table cloth and a visitor who may join the gas if the person is there alone jackie recently coordinated efforts with a third graders at power hill elementary school who made placemats with holiday themes seasons and other creative ideas and had them laminated for repeat usage recent comments about this program to carolyn might be the most telling she's that i am so thankful that my christianity is being used in such a way to better my community make friends bring happiness in a high miele to my neighbors a mission project i was always meant to be a part of carolyn concluded her nomination of jackie with through the goodness kindness and giving nature of her heart she has surpassed the standards of character counts in endless unselfish ways and that is why i am nominating jackie rival for the character counts recognition award unfortunately neither jacking or carolyn can make it tonight but would like to give jack the round of applause and show our appreciation for effort our next recipient is adam province adam has been an active rotarian in the mcmurry rotary club for the past couple of years adam was nominated for this award by township manager and fellow rotarian michael sylvestris adam along with his cousin mark aubrey and his wife sarah are very started the hoops for haiti program and it's a goal of the program to have the children of haiti equipped with the things necessary to play the game of basketball they would like to provide the children of northern haiti located in the northern part of haiti along the coast with not only shoes to play in but to experience what it is like to be a basketball player with real basketball and even a basketball jersey to w cycled through various programs or households and are perhaps outdated by some standards will come as welcome gifts so the children of haiti as a group well helps them experience what it is like to be basketball players they have a very big goal of putting a pair of basketball shoes and each and every basketball player that comes through the hoops for haiti basketball program in march of two thousand and ten the first trip was made to haiti six hundred four pairs of bad ball shoes over five hundred uniforms and a hundred eighty basketballs were taken over to haiti hoopster haiti team will be traveling back in may of this coming year hoops or haiti will be shooting a video for a doctor upcoming documentary with the working title beyond hoops for haiti they will be looking to show the impact that a message of hope and love through basketball can have on the lives of the young people of haiti i like to invite adam if he's if he's here to come out and if you want to take a moment just i know the of the coming trip and it made at the top a little bit about already what's new with the program or anything like that not a problem at all i know you talk a little bit about the actual basketball be in the camps and things was really allowed us to do is build relationships down there which has been a really neat opportunity to connect with folks down there and find out some of the other needs that go on the course everybody knows what's going on in haiti down in port au prince with the earthquake and everything but it's been a really a great opportunity in hopefully i get a chance take my kids down there and my wife is well sooner than later so the trip in may is actually i'm not going to be able to go but the rest of our team is going to head down there and the goal is really to start stretching out of my a little bit farther away from basketball per se because for when the earthquake happened people asked me you know there's a whole lot of other things out there other than people needing to play basketball but it really is a lot us to be able to help them in other ways just by building relationships with them to thank mike for nominating me and this is an honor to be up here and i really appreciate that very much so straight out organise our website if you ever have any questions you can get ahold of me that way and i really appreciate good evening character comes in all shapes and sizes it can be displayed by both adults and children our next character counts award recipient i'm sorry our next character counts award will recognize a former student of mine in a current fourth we have a banner in our classroom many teachers do that says no act of kindness however small is ever wasted we see this banner every day in our classroom and i see kindness every day michela she may be pint sized right now but shows more character than people three times  special from the first day i met her she came flying around the corner with a huge smile on her face so and susan excited to be a fourth grader and start the new year that excitement is still there every day one of the reasons i nominated mckayla was because of her strong sense of responsibility whatever the directions are or the assignment is mckayla gives one hundred percent to do her best to get her work done no matter how difficult it might be for her if she is not prepared she makes no excuses she accepts responsibility and blames no one but herself which is not always the trend with fourth grade students mchale's out that way more importantly is how mckayla treats others sometimes there is a student who is having an off day maybe seems a little sad or left out i have seen mckayla walk up on a variety of occasions and invite that student to join her and what she is doing the other students face will light up just as mine will because i knew mckayla didn't plan this she didn't even think about this she just reacted naturally because of a kind heart i also remember a time when we were working on a project and one of my students was struggling with what she was doing she was becoming very frustrated to the point of getting teary eyed i suggested maybe she should ask a friend for some help she turned into kayla and once again i was so proud of her reaction mckayla immediately turned to patiently help her with her project her kind words turning this into a learning experience for the other students the other student learn to reach out and ask for help when she needed it because mchale showed her that she would take the time to help her with whatever she needed too many times we were all in such a hurry including myself that we missed an opportunity to help someone in need mckayla doesn't miss these opportunities these may seem like small everyday things that mckayla does but what a different world it would be if we were all a little more like mckayla we are all very proud of you mckayla congratulations nominated for this award by mrs michelle shep check about real parent p t a member according to mr schip check kelly brings unbelievable energy on a daily basis that is unmatched in any school within the district her smile lights the doorway at students parents and visitors enter and leave the facility she spends countless hours planning and attending extracurricular events and is totally vested in the children's educational experience kelly has a constant willingness to go the extra mile to make certain the students are getting the most out of their time about real it's important to note that she does all of these wonderful things while still being able to balance your responsibilities with her own family at home to summarize mrs jepps checks feelings it's hard to express in words what gratification it brings t parents to know that your children attend an educational experience as wonderful as bauer who elementary school i'm sure the many other people were killed families share the same sentiments kelly congratulations our next order will be presented to the terror a fifth grader at mcmurray elementary school a former student mind brett is more than just are deserving of the character counts award not only because of his great personality and work ethic but because of the character that he has shown  dealing with some recent challenges and obstacles in his own life presenting the character accounts award to brett as mr clifford burns good evening a few months ago i came across an email about a nomination for character of an individual and i found myself going back and forth is enough time and time again i decided to have nominate bret to tara our son writes an eleven year old this greater that murray elementary school and last summer he was diagnosed with a very rare and very aggressive stage four cancer brad has gone through multiple chemotherapy treatments and egress medical treatments about every fourteen days and this is been ongoing since last summer through all of this brett has shown strength respect and responsibility as well as an appreciation for life that i couldn't even imagine ta er experience myself and never through any of this hardship has brought ever shown any ill will or any lack of integrity to anybody that has ever come across both his friends teachers his family doctors nurses and just about everybody that he encounters bread our son symbolizes to me a way of never giving up and never giving up on hope as well as a great strength to overcome middle school she's been described as a kind and welcoming soul and to all that enter the middle school both adults and children alike she's also been described as always there when you need her here to present that robin i'm going to have you come up here beside me your face need to be out there for everyone to see come on it's worth about stop this ladies and gentlemen is the peters township box top lady let's give her around the clock hours doing homework and projects and listening to stories about school that day to the bower hill students here the bucks out lady that they know you kara's mom the box up lady she sneaks into school at night when nobody's there wraps up the prizes in these beautiful decorations brings them in puts up beautiful showcases and nobody even knows that she was there to the p t a members here lady who sits behind that table every time i go to a p t a a band and you cheer me on for bringing in box tops campbell soup labels signing up for the giant eagle points and the target points she said lady to cheers us on about our hell to the community members she is the lady who calls on the founder and says to me there's this buck stop lady in our churches trying to raise money can you somehow connect me to the lady who cuts out these box tops she out reaches to our community not just her daughter's third grade class not just a mcmurry but she helps spread this throughout our community in peter township in a very selfless manner to the faculty and staff about our young here the amazing volunteers somehow you bring in and and i mock so that we can create the art of listening glow in the dark necklaces so we can have a third grade musical all of these things happen behind the scenes because of this little lady that comes the end collects the box tops uses these magical scissors to cut thousands nine thousand dollars worth of share of our real nine thousand dollars worth of these little ten cent coupons she cuts and counts along with her daughter and her son and her husband who are here tonight that ladies and gentlemen is a true character here's the dads to be south let's do that good deed not so that you're recognized but so that you can pay it forward to me here as a role model is the part i'm to call it he taught me how to balance being a family in a mom working full time doing good things for the community and not asking for credit and i've learned a lot from you thank you emma and max lindsay two high school students  shaquille o'neil once said excellence is not a singular act but a habit you are what you repeatedly do and this is exactly why we nominated mr brett snyder for the character comes word at the beginning of last year as you guys probably know it he started his term as the temporary acting principal of the high school and now a year and a half later and he's still here as if he had taken the job for good through all of this he could have taken the easy way out and just let the time slide by while the township looked a new principle to fill in the space but instead he chose to take the bull by the horns and change the high school for the better he is truly listening to what the students have to say and trying to use our opinions to make the high school a better place and where we want to spend our four years of high school to us this is the exact embodiment of what character really is i think the best example of the student opinion of mr brettschneider was given during an announcement he made during my lunch period first of all we were all sitting there and mr brush fire started to speak and everyone fell immediately silent which i think is a testament to the respect that we have for him and then in the middle of the announcement one of the kids at my lunch table turned to me and said hey max and i couldn't really say anything back to that because i couldn't really disagree so it out further ado mr brettschneider this is just our way of giving back for all the effort that he's  lifelong to becoming a better person and i just want to say in front of all of you that one of these days i'm going to grow up and mckayla and brett whenever i grow up i want to be just like you thank you i'm next to work used to stephen shilling one of our second great from pleasant valley elementary he's proved himself to himself his family his school and community that life is about helping others and making a difference in the lives of those less fortunate  what wasn't long after i was named principal pleasant valley elementary school that i got an e mail and a phone call from mr shelling and stephen and they had contacted me and had said you know stephen has a really good idea and he wants to collect haiti and i said oh that's that sounds like a great thing to do but you know let's do what we have to do to move that move there go forward so being a new district i had to go through all the the protocol and everything to make sure we did it the right way and i thought this was going to be a month long thing so after about a month the school started and there was a press on stephen's goal is to collect issues and as more people learn about it i was receiving phone calls in my office messages like three or four messages a day from community members saying we hear there's a little boy in your school he wants to collect use for haiti where we bring them and it was days upon days after school like four o'clock after the buses left that these cars pulling up were dumping shoes in arabi and i think i think what symbolizes it the most was the day that mr mr schilling and steven came up to pick up the shoes that i saw them walking out of the building and there on their third trip in as i saw them i thought oh my gosh i got to we got to do something to help and so you know mr shelley has three armed force used even carrying the shoes we have  people helping out and walking out to the opera parking lot to carry our shoes up and it just grew can take it it became contagious so shoe the point shoes and so today just again another couple of  shiploads of shoes walked into our building and they end up in our box and it's been a real great lesson on leadership a group great lesson on having character and stephen you're in a great crowd this evening thanks again for everyone for coming in that concludes our program this evening there are various refreshments to my left and congratulations again to all the recipients and everyone have a great