Our initial venture will identify 1-3 schools and 1-3 local community organizations that will participate in the inaugural Cordelia Hope’s Way Program for the 2016-17 school year.  Each school will run a participatory program to encourage and recognize students who are kind and empathetic – as evidenced by clear, direct examples of those children helping others – so that spreading hope, love and laughter is celebrated in the same way that children often get commended for being a good athlete or top student.

We will award each partner school a grant to create or sustain a program that promotes kindness and friendship, embodying Cordelia's spirit. The funds will cover general programmatic costs such as kick-off events, implementation support, and closing celebrations, which will allow the school and its students to fully engage in Cordelia's Way activities. Each school will serve as a program partner for one year. Participating students will also help their school determine how to spend the money in a way that best fosters continued kindness and empathy at the school.

Our goal is to generate a compassionate cycle of kindness in schools, with the hope that it leads to a positive, measurable, long-term impact in individual students' lives as well as in their schools and communities. This broad-reaching impact will include raising awareness about the importance of kindness and empathy, as well as encouraging and helping to change students' behavior so that they are more kind and empathetic to each other. We believe that by partnering with schools in diverse socioeconomic areas and providing them with funding, we can have a meaningful impact on the lives of the children as well as their communities.  

We will first open the program to New Jersey schools to apply. We believe that the program can easily scale rapidly as we will support much of the content centrally, sharing resources and collecting stories on our website and over social media. We hope that our awards will plant seeds of kindness within our partner communities that grow over time to make a meaningful change in the lives of many and in the Cordelia Hope Way, spreading Hope, compassion, love and laughter and healing the world’s boo boos.

Schools and organizations will be asked to submit a proposal on how they will use the additional grant funds. Along with utilizing the Cordelia Hope Way's kickoff program (which will be provided to the gratees)

Some sample ideas include:

· Awards & Recognition programs for acts of kindness, empathy and compassion

· Starting a friendship club

· Developing an afterschool arts or music program

· Building a "buddy bench"

· Creating a pen-pal program

· Connecting students to volunteer opportunities in their communities #inspiringhope

· Bringing students on field trips that encourage kindness, respect, and friendship

THE CORDELIA HOPEWAY