Character Counts!  “Cool to have Character”

Valeria has been an advocate for Character Counts! since the year 2000, when she was a sophomore in high school. Since then she has formed an alliance with Louisiana State University's Agricultural Center's 4-H Youth Development Program, which has emphasized the importance of teaching character education since 1996 in conjunction with the required coursework.

Character Counts! is a nonprofit organization committed to developing moral character into our lives for a more compassionate and responsible society.  It is an educational framework for teaching universal values and character to be used in business, education, and life. Throughout Valeria’s volunteer experiences with Character Counts, she has implemented the Six Pillars of Character: trustworthiness, respect, responsibility, fairness, caring, and citizenship into her programs. Her hope is to further develop programs for young people so they too can instill character and become responsible and caring citizens.  Valeria believes that educating our youth is not only about reading, writing, and arithmetic.  It is also about life, citizenship, and the value of being a good person.  Valeria’s goal with Character Counts is that when she has the opportunity to teach character education, she can change a child’s world, and perhaps the world around her, will begin to change.

Over the past few years, there has been an enormous amount of media coverage given to the elementary, middle, and high schools throughout the state of Louisiana. The media coverage consists of unacceptable stories of students fighting on the school bus, bringing weapons and drugs to school, breaking and trespassing into classrooms, displaying violent behavior toward faculty and staff members, disrespecting their peers, and cheating on tests. Hence, Valeria believes the need for Character Counts! education for our younger generation is a necessity! 

In pursuit of a career goal, Valeria has found Character Counts to play a major role in the decision on what she wants to accomplish in life. This decision has motivated her to become a juvenile attorney. Her ultimate career goal is to be an advocate for juvenile delinquents and a general counselor for nonprofit organizations such as Character Counts. Achieving this goal would put Valeria in a positive position to provide an opportunity for juvenile delinquents to change the course of their life through programs that focus on character building and would eventually offer them a second chance to a better life.

The issue of 'good character' needs to be addressed now in order to change the future of our youth.  Society wants to see young people assume responsibility for the future and achieve greatness through service.  With this platform, Valeria will definitely alter the outlook and course our country takes.