Lu Ann Franklin of the NWI Times wrote an article about our project. Read the article below or read it on the Times’ Website.

Civility a cause for celebration

MUNSTER — An idea to engage and inspire area youths and young adults to become outstanding and involved citizens will receive the 2017 anti-bullying award at a gala dinner during the second World Civility Day on April 13.

Demonstrating Outstanding Citizenship (DOC) took root in Munster last spring and became an Indiana Bicentennial Legacy Project under the leadership of Louise Chickie-Wolfe, founder of the Munster Junior Historical Society, education director and DOC 200 Project administrator.

Launched in the spring of 2015 by the Gary Chamber of Commerce and The Times Media Co., the Community Civility Counts campaign sponsored this year’s contest that honors efforts to create civility.

The DOC project will receive the anti-bullying award at Avalon Manor in Hobart in a ceremony that concludes the second World Civility Day.

“The kids will be thrilled,” said Chickie-Wolfe about the anti-bullying award. “We are very proud to receive this recognition.”

She said the DOC 200 project was originally based on Indiana’s Bicentennial. It guides and inspires Indiana’s students in grades kindergarten through college to become outstanding citizens by teaching 50 specific life skills covering four areas — integrity, acceptance, service and patriotism.

The number 200 celebrates the state’s bicentennial and is the number of actions the students need to demonstrate and report on.

Chickie-Wolfe said the Indiana Bicentennial Committee judged the Demonstrating Outstanding Citizenship 200 project to be “culturally inclusive, celebratory, engaging and inspiring to young and young adults, and creating a legacy for the future.”

In writing the bicentennial committee application for the DOC 200, she said three community endorsements were needed and came swiftly from the School Town of Munster, the Munster Police Department and The Times Media  Co.

“Students are asked to practice outstanding citizenship at home, in school and in their community. It will take at least 100 days because the students can only do two acts of outstanding citizenship a day,” Chickie-Wolfe said in December during a ceremony to recognize the 13 students who completed this inaugural project.

Those 13 included elementary students from Elliott, Frank Hammond and St. Paul’s Lutheran School as well as those enrolled at Wilbur Wright Middle School and Munster High School.

Students from Munster High School comprise the next class of students to participate in the DOC project, Chickie-Wolfe said.

She said that it is a free program. Parents can find information and registration applications at the website, www.DOC200Project.com. The project also has a Facebook page.

“The program can’t help but do good,” Chickie-Wolfe said. “It’s a win-win for everybody.”