0 Home Teaching Guides Resources About Us Our Store About Us ould you like to hear a good story? We’ve got a great one to tell you, but only if you’ll take your hand off that mouse and pay close attention. Go ahead, you can do it. David Elkind & Freddy Sweet with the cast of “Popcorn Park” To begin with, we should tell you that GoodCharacter.com is a project of our company, Live Wire Media / Elkind+Sweet Communications, Inc. The company was born in 1987, when we created and produced a PBS TV series called “The Power of Choice.” It started out simply to be a one-hour TV special for teens about making good choices. But then, as in any good story, it changed. It changed because a lot of people saw our TV special and liked it. Loved it, actually, and they wanted more. So, with generous funding from Nestle Foods, and the PBS programming muscle of WNET-Thirteen, New York, we embarked on a marvelous adventure that resulted in a 12-part television series that changed our lives, and, we are told, the lives of a good many high school kids, as well. It all began when we teamed up with a very unusual character named Michael Pritchard—a standup comic who also happened to be a juvenile probation officer with a gift for communicating with young people through heart and humor. We took Mike on a tour of 27 high schools throughout the U.S., where he thrilled his audiences with insightful comedy about growing up and led groups of students in exciting brainstorming sessions about challenging issues that affect their lives. Issues like communicating with parents, coping with pressures, and sorting out their values. The cameras rolled as they talked, they laughed, they argued, they cried, and they learned a lot—mostly from each other. The result was this scintillating TV series which teaches young people that “In life, you can make good choices, or you can make rotten choices, but you will always have the power of choice.” When the series debuted on PBS in 1988, the response was overwhelming. Not only did it get rave reviews and lots of awards, but we also received an avalanche of orders for video copies from schools, libraries, youth groups, health organizations, police departments, etc. throughout the U.S. and Canada (we still get orders for it). It also triggered a demand for more programs on similar kinds of issues for middle and elementary school children. Suddenly we found ourselves in the business of creating, producing, and distributing youth guidance videos and television.