For Kids & Community

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Children’s Services Council of Broward County is a special friend of the Humanity Project. Today we thank them again, as so many times in the past. And we remind the community of their important work helping to improve life for kids and families.

CSC Broward is a tax-funded agency that supports programs and offers other assistance to make sure that children grow up to be healthy, educated, well-balanced human beings. What could be more important? Since 2008, Children’s Services Council of Broward County has consistently aided the work of the Humanity Project as we continue to teach kids about respect for each individual, about equality, about bullying and how to stop it. Our programs are proven effective — and we have 16 years of empirical results to show their effectiveness. CSC’s funding is a reflection of our work’s value in the local community.

We recently received another generous grant from Children’s Services Council of Broward County to build a new “Humanity Garden” at an elementary school. The garden project is part of our Humanity Club program, which works with young student leaders to help them understand and spread throughout their school the values of equality and respect. We are proud of this program — and grateful for the continued support from CSC Broward. We know that expanding the minds of children requires efforts that also connect with their hearts. Our Humanity Gardens are one important tool to do just that.

We hope you’ll visit the website of Children’s Services Council of Broward County. They play a vital role in the life of the South Florida community — and in the work of the Humanity Project. Thank you, CSC Broward!

Fabled Lives

We want you to know about a special book, with 100% of royalties for the first two years going directly to the Humanity Project. That audiobook is called, “Fabled Lives: Simple Stories You Need For Living In A Complex World.” You’ll find it available on Apple Books, Walmart, Google Play, Barnes and Noble and nearly every other major seller of audio-only books. (Amazon/Audible does not sell books that are available only on audio.) Or you can just visit the Author’s Guild website of Robert Spencer Knotts, who wrote the fables and the original music that accompanies each story in this charming book: Visit the author’s website.

That author, of course, is also the founder and president of the Humanity Project, Bob Knotts. He wrote these dozen fables over a period of 14 years — and they are posted for free on this website: Visit our Fables page. One of them is even posted here in an audio version. Overwhelmingly, those fables are the most popular feature on the Humanity Project website, attracting hits daily from nations spread around the globe on six continents.

Now you can enjoy them all in a single new audiobook, produced and engineered by Matt Corey — an award-winning sound designer and a VP on the Humanity Project Board of Directors. The audiobook is professional quality and runs more than an hour long. You’ll find these morality tales written for an adult audience, or even older kids. Each carries a clear lesson as fables have for centuries, from Aesop on down. Enjoy them, pass them along to friends and family … and maybe give them a little thought as well. They are cleverly written but, yes, simple stories we all can use for living in this very very complex world of ours.

Evolution, Not Revolution

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The logo for the Humanity Project’s PeacePage

At the Humanity Project, we believe every nonprofit organization needs to grow, change, expand. Just as all living things must change in order to adapt to new conditions … and to achieve their fullest usefulness. The Humanity Project is about to go through such a change.

This blog, then, is intended to give our friends and supporters some advance word about these very exciting changes. And to reassure everyone that our next phase of growth will be part of the Humanity Project’s evolution, not a revolution where everything goes and change is radical. Not at all. We plan to keep pushing ahead with our acclaimed existing programs such as Antibullying Through the Arts, I Care and Humanity Club.

But in the coming weeks this fall you’ll find us with a new mission statement as well as a new slogan. And soon some new programs that will carry us beyond the boundaries of working exclusively with kids to include parental and adult groups that we believe can benefit from our work. (Actually we’re already doing this as part of our I Care program, a change that came as research increasingly showed that parents were the real problem on our roads much more than the teen drivers themselves. So we created a State-Farm sponsored website just for parents of teen drivers: www.thp4parents.com — “The Humanity Project 4 Parents.”)

As you will soon see, though, we believe our mission now is ready to expand beyond even this effort. For example, we hope to work toward building coalitions within our community and to create dialogue among groups that too often misunderstand each other. This can benefit the LGBTQ population, promote gender and racial equality and more.

In the end, the Humanity Project represents an important idea: that every human being is unique but equally valuable and that all individuals should be treated with greater respect. Back in 2010 we created our PeacePage with this notion already in mind, a photo gallery collected from all seven continents to demonstrate something of the humanity we all share. Visit our PeacePage. During our Board of Directors retreat just a few weeks ago, the Humanity Project decided this basic concept can guide our evolution as we move into our 15th year of existence. Positive growth, meaningful and practical development — evolution, not revolution. That’s what we have in mind. We’re sure you’ll like what you see as we unveil the new improved Humanity Project, with a focus on instilling greater respect for the goodness and inherent value of the humanity we all share.