By Bob Knotts, Founder & President

I offer a personal blog today with very mixed emotions. Both gladness and sadness. Gladness because the wonderful young woman named Stephanie Wong is moving on to new adventures in life. Sadness because, well, Stephanie is moving on -- of necessity. And I can't tell you how much I regret seeing her leave our Board of Directors.

In the Humanity Project's 12-year existence I've never once posted a word when any board member had to resign for whatever reason. Usually these good folks left because they didn't have the time to devote to our work and felt they were letting down other board members. But it always seemed best to let them slip away from our organization with as little fuss as possible ... and with our gratitude for their efforts.

It's different with Stephanie. More than two years ago she joined as our very first student member of the board. Since then she helped create our now-thriving Humanity Club program and completely redesigned our website. Wow ... The look of this very modern, very lovely website is all her work, completed over a full year. As you can see with a few clicks, the Humanity Project has an unusually large and content-heavy main website that's linked to two other Humanity Project websites we created for young people: www.thp4kids.com and www.thehumanityproject.com/icare. The task of redesigning thehumanityproject.com was enormous. You can see the results for yourself, all carried out with Stephanie's typical commitment, hard work, good humor and intelligence ... at no cost to the Humanity Project.

Wow, again.

Now Stephanie is no longer a student. Her title is Program Director, TRIO Educational Opportunity Center at Miami-Dade College - InterAmerican Campus. She lives in Miami-Dade County, a lengthy traffic-choked drive from the Humanity Project headquarters in Broward County, Florida where much of our hands-on work in the schools takes place. And before long, Stephanie will tackle graduate school, likely out of state. Reluctantly I agreed with her decision that it was time to leave us.

I asked Stephanie for a brief comment to include in this blog. As usual, she went above and beyond. These are her remarks about the Humanity Project: "I couldn’t be more grateful to have served alongside such an experienced and dedicated Board of local leaders. The team behind the Humanity Project truly embodies its core values of diversity and respect for all as each program is uniquely designed to support youth development, with inclusivity and a deeper understanding of characterized differences as its focus. During my time as Board Member, I was given the opportunity to work with middle and high school students directly. Whether the students were from South Florida or the Caribbean, I was able to impart the Humanity Project values through arts-based programming and by taking our THP4Kids program from an online format to a person-to-person model. Not only was I able to experience the unique approach the Humanity Project brought to the communities we serve, I also was allowed to learn about the ways that I may continue to develop as a member of our shared human experience. The Humanity Project also permitted me to take on the challenge of redesigning our organization’s website and bringing it to a mobile-friendly platform. This lets us share our programs with a wider audience. At every step of the way, I have been allowed to imagine, create and implement for the benefit of our local and global community. If there is one key take away that I have learned during my time with my friends at THP, it has been that no matter what we do or how we feel in life, we are always stronger together with unity at the fore. Thank you for the opportunity to be of service."

No, Stephanie. Thank you!

We love you!