Recently, FLOC had the opportunity to share an evening with some of our favorite people. Staff members joined with volunteers, community partners, and students and their families for our eighth annual Recognition Event and Empower Awards. Each year, we hold a Recognition Event to showcase and celebrate the people who make our organization so successful. It’s our chance to tell a wider audience some of our favorite stories from the past year.
The theme for this year’s event was Game On!, and we had a blast. We got to play some games like Charades and Telephone, challenge our guests with some FLOC Trivia (Do you know, without researching, when FLOC was founded?*), and, thanks to our incredibly gracious hosts at the Woman’s National Democratic Club, eat some delicious food.
As a staff member, I really appreciate the opportunity to participate in these kinds of events. During the school year, it’s easy to get focused on the specifics of a phonetic concept, or the way a math test is administered, and the big picture, the larger story of our successes and long-term work, can get lost in the shuffle of the day to day. The Recognition Event gives us all a chance to step back and reflect, to offer up thanks for all the special ways folks contribute to our organization. FLOC exists and is effective because we operate in such a great community, and our successes are a direct result of the talent, creativity, and drive of our students, families, volunteers, and partners.
So take a few minutes to look through the pictures from the event, and take stock of the fact that such a large group of people has come together from vastly different backgrounds to work toward the same goal. That’s a unique thing, and it’s well worth recognizing.
*FLOC was founded in 1965
(Cody Laminack is the NTP Curriculum Coordinator at FLOC).
