The Last 48 Hours
Dear Readers,
A lot has transpired within the last 48 hours! First of all Floridians....Stay Warm! It is going to be cold today! Jeff and I decided to have a fire last night under the beautiful sky, the moon and the stars were stunning! We have recently moved out into the country, unincorporated Hillsborough County, and we can't get over how much clearer the skies look at night! Jeff makes a great a fire and never misses a chance to remind me that he is part Cherokee hence he loves to create, in my biased opinion, the best fires! OK now you be the judge:
We love living out here! It is our haven of peace amidst all of the hustle and bustle of the world!
Character GPS has a grant from the State of Florida Department of Juvenile Justice which allows us to provide our services for free to certain populations of youth in the Central Florida area. Private donations go toward expenses not covered by the grant for example if we take our program to Haiti (which we did)!
One of the requirements for our grant is that we have to attend the Hillsborough County CAB (Circuit 13 Action Board) Meetings which are held every other month usually at the Hillsborough County Center on Kennedy Blvd.
Notably, Rocky Brancato has been running these meetings and he is also running for the position of Public Defender!
We enjoy these meetings, they are televised and the public can sign up to comment, as they provide synergistic networking opportunities which would benefit our community, specifically our youth.
In fact, we would not be providing services at Seminole Heights Charter High School and West University Charter High School if it wasn't for the fact that we heard a presentation by Principals Dr. Bobby Smith and McRae Mangum at one of these meetings! Principal MacRae told this amazing story at our Annual Luncheon (see video link below McRae at 16:50):
Here is a link to yesterday's CAB meeting:
After yesterday's meeting on the 26th floor we were talking with Robert Parkinson , Criminal Justice Liason for Hillsborough County, and we asked if we could see his office on the 24th floor, on our way down. Rob has always been very gracious to us and he started giving us a guided tour on the 24th floor and I had this deja vu moment and said to Jeff "We've been here before! 8 years ago!" We then recalled the day maybe 8 years ago, before we knew Rob, that Jeff presented Character GPS to the CAB Meeting on the 26th floor. We were directed to speak with Rob about how to get funding as we had no grant at that time, and he graciously took us to his office. He then spent quite a bit of time with us sharing his best practices for grant writing. Since that time we have gotten to know him better at Juvenile Justice events in Orlando and now it's like we have known him for a very long time.
We got to see his office environment again and here are some fun pictures from this time spent on the 24th floor:
This last picture reflects the fact that Rob and Jeff learned something about each other they did not previously know; they both love Porsches! Here they are talking cars which gives me a great opportunity to snap pics because, hey, it's all Greek to me! From the look of Jeff's facial expression in this last pic, he was at that point recalling a time when he almost died in a Porsche! His dad restored Porsches as a hobby and Jeff was allowed to take it for a drive and well, there was ice involved, and to make a long story short, he survived a harrowing experience! We always say it just wasn't his time to go yet, there still much more that God had for him to do and so we live our lives that way, with purpose, wanting to help as many youth as we can. Therein lies the root of our passion for helping!
Speaking of helping youth, Thursday's Character GPS classes were held at West University Charter High School and we presented the Overview to these new students. Here are some pics from Thursday's classes in Tampa:
领英推荐
Classes went very well and we are so proud of our new Peer Mentors, how they are gaining confidence and paying it forward by helping others.
Here are short video clips from Thursday's classes:
Peer Mentor Rifan
Dr. Bobby Smith
Peer Mentor Stryker
Peer Mentor Tayana
That is about it for now but hey...stay inspired and find your passion
Your Friends at Character GPS,
Debbie & Jeff Cain