good evening everyone thank you for coming tonight welcome to peter's house of middle school thank you for hosting us this evening this is the peters township character counts fall awards night and so peter of character counts just a brief mention as to what we are we are a community organization that is made up of all parts of this community so for those that live and work in peter's township you are all welcome at our monthly gatherings we have our next meeting coming up on election day on the eighth at noon we will be meeting at pleasant valley elementary there is a light lunch and we do have a one hour meeting where we go over various character initiatives that all the community groups are doing and we discuss how we can support one another and then we talk about all the events that are going on so it is typically comprised of the school district all of th school principals the police department the local ministerial we have parks and rec we have the township sometimes we have the local library we have a lot of the community groups that come together local p d s a and we share all the initiatives that we're working on it's truly an awesome organization and there's not much to it and that's kind of what makes it so special is that we just kind of support one another in the various things that we're doing to promote character values in our community so i am christian lesson on the assistant principal at the high school and i'm one of the coordinators for peter's township character counts so i do thank you for coming tonight and we're excited to share with you some of the awesome things that people in our community are doing and our recipients tonight the way that it's going to work is that we will read what was written about you so therefore if it sounds like odd things loving statements and things like that it's we are proud of you but it isn't necessarily our love that we're imparting we're imparting the love of the person that nominated you and then we will invite the recipient at the start to come on up and stand up here awkwardly and be appreciated as we read all the amazing things that you have done and then what we'll do is we'll present your certificate step to the side we were asked to nominate or to come up with them and get a picture with them  with their certificate for the local news as well and for our website and in the chambers website and school districts website i think will probably scroll them through all of those sites so that's the way that it will work and when we're done we have some refreshments like i said there really are chocolate covered strawberries out there and so thank you suzanne for those wherever you may be and we will get started this is adam sikorsky he's going to be our other mc tonight to lower the mike with christian stature here i am out of sikorsky on the principal here at peter's township middle school and i'm happy to present with mr less than that tonight so our first nominee if you could come up to the stage is joseph and joseph was nominated by nicole tafe and laura brennan and i will read the words of the nomination and bear with me because it sounds like you have a lot of accolades and positive descriptions about yourself so i'm i'm really pleased to read this a is very detailed which i appreciate as well it's are great pleasure to nominate joseph bell if you are for a peters township character counts award we have come to know joe over the past several years through his involvement with our local theater group the abbey players joe is without question among the top students we have had the pleasure of working with over the course of our careers joe displays modest and focused professionalism in strives to motivate and support others from every standpoint personally professionally academically and theatrically his work and his demeanor are first class as a person joe's polite respectful and unfailingly kind professionalism discipline integrity high standards and delight in his work are just a few ways to describe joe's character but perhaps the most unique point to make about joe's character is his willingness to stand away from what's popular in order to do the right thing and to lead by example something that is without question difficult for most teenagers to do in today's society while we have witness joe do this on several occasions and one instance in particular stands out among the rest recently following one of our productions several of the students took part in our tradition of going out for dinner and desserts at a local restaurant there was some divide in protest among the other students in joe's class about which restaurant the cast would go to when it was decided that the restaurant the entire group made up of students in grades seven through twelve would to all of the upper classmen with the exception of joe made the choice to forget about the abbey players as a group and go to another restaurant as it was the more popular place to go and other high school students that were not members of the abbey players would be joining the upper classman there that evening joe was pressured by nearly all of his peers to attend the other restaurant but to each of them he replied that it wouldn't be right to leave the group and go someplace else that evening joe was the only upper classmen to attend the group restaurant with the younger students of the abbey players and he held true to the to what he thought was the right thing to do despite peer pressure and popularity it was more than evident that the younger members of our group were increasingly happy to have joe sitting with them making them laugh and feeling important each one of our younger members looked up to joe that evening and they do often as a role model and as a friend joe is without doubt an asset to our community his positive impact on peter's township non only supportive role model but also as that dynamic and committed individual his character spirit his passion his dedication to excellence and efforts to bring out the best in himself and others make him  one of a kind member of it this community congratulations to joe for those that didn't get a chance to see dracula the recent high school hall play joe was joe was our dracula and he was terrifying so at the character council meeting the last one we reviewed all the nominations that we received and this is no joke totally separately totally independent  the bell for your family is on full nomination tonight they are being recognized we received a totally separate nomination for joe's younger brother oh and  joe and when this is done you guys should probably nominate mom and dad for the next one all right so this is zero and zero in is zero one was nominated by shannon berry  president of the essay owen is an amazing young man one worthy of recognition of his high standard for character not only is this young man an exemplary student he also plays soccer for both the p a and a local cup team a commitment that engages him after school most nights of the week in addition to the rigors of being a great athlete owen chooses to work for our association as a referee and commonly will function as such several times a week where he has demonstrated an extremely healthy work ethic and leadership on the field i recently oh and was recently confronted with a challenging situation and a game that he referee a coach from another team disagreed with his judgment and virtually harassed owen in front of a large crowd to his credit own stood his ground and stood up to this emotional coach eventually that coach recognize that owens judgement was correct and that he was wrong that's a rare thing i am proud of ellen for being bold enough to stand up for himself and his understanding of the sport that he loves the p t s say and all twelve hundred of our members want to thank owen for his leadership and yes his profoundly high level of character we need more young men like owen bell for your in peters township please consider him for this award as he is an exemplary candidate we did and you won so congratulations if anyone is here for the nominators come on the next nominee that i would like to invite up on the stage is caitlin  kalen was nominated by mr christian lies in it and caitlin is a unique recipient as this is her second consecutive character counts award nomination so congratulations with that distinct  honor caitlin caitlyn is the l'abri media specialist at the high school and she's naaman because she is helping to shift and shape the landscape of the high school's library media center and the roles and responsibilities of that position caitlin goes above and beyond to support both the school and the students in addition to her or her classroom roles and responsibilities she's a sponsor of the interact club the g s a club the book club and the and the literary magazine it is my pleasure to welcome caitlin gilroy to our character counts awards ceremony all right our next recipient is lexie phillips come on down as an eighth grade student lexie has already developed selflessness as a strong character trait she is always willing to lend a helping hand to support others like c serves a welcoming new students to the building helping them to acclimate to p m s she goes above and beyond her duties during the first day of school lexi was helping an incoming seventh grader with her locker combination which can be stressful lexie continued to practice with the student and gave the new student high fives once they were able to successfully open the locker she then asked for their name reminding them to say hello to her when they saw her in the hallway what a great way to start your first year in a new building she is always smiling throughout the day never fails lexi's character traits are beyond her years and it's such a pleasure to have her as a student like  our next nominee is the p peters township varsity and junior varsity wrestling teams and the big red booster club so if a representative of the non cup folks com and the character counts committee actually submitted this nomination the peters township wrestling teams have sponsored an event for four years called a match for a marine the proceeds from these events have gone to support a local wounded veteran sergeant doug the towel and his wife alexis the teams and boosters have partnered with local high schools during the wrestling season and together we have raised over fifty five thousand dollars in the first four years of the event this year we plan to reach out to other wrestling programs across the country to encourage a similar event that will support other wounded veterans who may need things like a wheelchair coa a wheelchair coach or assistance the team members and booster families have done a fantastic job of supporting this event by encouraging attendance from peers family and community members congratulations as you can see both big and small the impacts that people make in terms of the daily decisions to represent themselves and their community and their families with character make a tremendous impact remember that as you go forth that even the small things that you do for one another have ripple effects that keep on going so we can gradually those that have received an award tonight for their tremendous efforts for their resilience and the outstanding character values continue to do this and i also encourage everyone else in the audience please consider recommending and nominating someone for our spring award ceremony as you can see that even though a small thing it goes far to just recognize a support people and promoting good character so thank you so much for coming this does conclude our program please join us for those strawberries have a great evening oh actually we want to do a picture for all the recipients if we can have all the recipients come on up to the stage we are going to do a picture for for the news