Laws of Life Essay Contest - Middle School

About 15 years ago, our current President, Ed Outlaw, learned about the Laws of Life Essay Contest from the Templeton Foundation. The Templeton Foundation had developed the contest concept, and encouraged service clubs to work with schools to make it happen. At the time, the Georgia Laws of Life Essay contest for high schools was already in place, so, to avoid duplicating efforts, our club decided to sponsor a contest at J.C. Booth Middle School. We have now sponsored that middle school contest every year for 15 years, including the current year. Retired teacher and Rotarian Carolyn Wilkinson has chaired this project, and coordinated getting members to judge the contest, worked with the school, and organized our recognition event as one of our meeting Programs. The book with winning essays that we hand out at our recognition lunch is attached.

This project has also led to additional projects, including an elementary school ethics essay that we sponsor each year (including this year). It was also the starting point that led to Rotary administering the Georgia wide high school Laws of Life Essay Contest (listed as a separate project). As detailed under the write up for that project, we are working this year to greatly expand the contest in Fayette County Schools, and to work in other similar ways with the local school system.