Jesse Lewis Choose Love Movement - Organization of the Year

Company: Jesse Lewis Choose Love Movement, Newtown, CT
Company Description: Jesse Lewis Choose Love Movement™ is a 501(c)(3) charitable organization with a mission to ensure that every child has access to Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) in their classrooms and to help facilitate this teaching within their families, schools and communities. We do this in honor of Jesse who was murdered at Sandy Hook Elementary.
Nomination Category: Company/Organization Awards Categories
Nomination Sub Category: Organization of the Year – Government or Non-Profit– 10 or Less Employees

Nomination Title: Jesse Lewis Choose Love Movement

The Choose Love Movement Transforms Lives through the Choose Love Formula

Scarlett Lewis founded the nonprofit Jesse Lewis Choose Love Movement in honor of her son, Jesse, who was murdered in the Sandy Hook tragedy in December 2012. After his death, Scarlett became part of the solution to the issues that also caused the tragedy -- and turned it into an opportunity to build a culture of love, resilience, forgiveness, and connection in schools and communities. Scarlett became an advocate for social and emotional learning and character development, teaching children how to manage emotions, feel connected, and have meaningful relationships. Choose Love For Schools is a no cost, comprehensive, lifespan, next generation character and social emotional development program that teaches children and adults how to thoughtfully respond with love in any situation using the Choose Love Formula (Courage + Gratitude + Forgiveness + Compassion-in-Action). The Choose Love programming extends beyond the classroom with programming for the home, communities, athletes, the workplace, and offers multiple extension programs. In response to COVID, Choose Love created additional free resources to help people deal with the stress and anxiety. The Choose Love programs have been accessed in all 50 states and in more than 111 countries, reaching more than 2 million children.

Choose Love has grown exponentially to help individuals cope with a pandemic and social issues. It’s in 10,000+ schools, all 50 states, and 111 countries.

Choose Love for Schools includes neuroscience and positive psychology to teach growth mindset and mindfulness. Aligns with CASEL model standards and is first-ever program to incorporate state-of-the-art Character Social Emotional Development model standards established by Character.org.

Created Choosing Love in Our Brave New World, social-emotional wellness program to support educators and students, fostering a growth mindset and perseverance with trauma-sensitive, healing-centered lessons based on neuroscience and post-traumatic growth.

Launched How To SEL coaching subscription series teaching educators and parents how to incorporate SEL strategies into their daily lives.

Designed interactive Experiential Educator Wellness Workshops to help educators reduce stress, connect as a school community, and implement the Choose Love Formula.

Offer A Daily Dose of Love e-newsletter that helps readers put Choose Love into action.

Nagoya City, Japan, with a population of 2.5 million, is becoming a Choose Love city and is funding the translation of the program for their schools.

Founding partner of the first National Mental Health Action Day.

Participated in Lady Gaga’s Born This Way Foundation’s #BeKind21 challenge.

Host the ChooSELove Movement podcast featuring insightful discussion on timely topics.

Launched Choose Love Book Club featuring thought-provoking books that help participants learn and grow.

Partnered with University of South Florida/Santoro Foundation for Choose Love to Thrive , offering daily action steps to help people practice the Choose Love Formula.

Choose Love is committed to fostering social-emotional intelligence worldwide to stem the onset of mental health issues by offering resources and programs that provide essential life skills and tools in schools, communities, workplaces, and at home. In 2020, NonProfitPRO named Scarlett Lewis ‘Unsung Hero’ for taking on the responsibility for the suffering of children in the nation and around the world that often leads to disastrous effects. The Choose Love Movement provides a proactive and preventative solution to everyone. The Choose Love Formula and easy-to-use curriculums impart emotional intelligence, moral awareness, and personal responsibility, teaching children core competencies and skills to empower them to thrive emotionally, mentally, personally, and socially. All of Choose Love’s resources are aimed at uniquely supporting and connecting educators and staff, parents and caregivers, and businesses and organizations, providing value to everyone through personal and interpersonal skills development. In 2020, Scarlett co-authored a compelling op-ed in The Hill advocating a new chapter in the educational system to encourage schools to more intentionally embed into their curriculum opportunities for students to learn and apply a range of social, emotional, and behavioral skills, and in turn, teach children to become people of character. Choose Love’s mission is to cultivate safer classrooms and school climates, offer mental health initiatives to cope with the stress of COVID in addition to diseases of despair, and to strengthen the health and resilience of individuals, and improve the community and culture of groups to promote a more peaceful, loving, and connected world.

-Experiential Education Wellness Workshops: Choose Love created these self-care professional development workshops for educators that also increases confidence in how to integrate essential SEL practices into their classroom, school, and personal lives.
-Our Brave New World: Back-to-school social-emotional wellness program.
-A Daily Dose of Love: A daily e-newsletter featuring an inspirational quote, a heartwarming story, and a call to action.
-ESI Diagram: Emotional and Social Intelligence wheel illustrating next generation SEL.
-Scarlett & Jesse Lewis: Scarlett and her six-year-old son, Jesse, the inspiration for the Movement.
-Scarlett Lewis resume: highlights of Ms. Lewis’ background.