#47: A LOCAL BUSINESSMAN BELIEVES IN, AND $SUPPORTS JNP’S MISSION

By Dona Rudderow Sturn on August 11, 2015 in Founder’s Blog

The JNP Project is at the beginning of a GROWTH CAMPAIGN, and local supporters are helping to kick it off!

David Blecman–owner of Positive Negatives, your professional photography experience located here in Annapolis, MD–is a JNP top supporter, along with the wonderful members of the Annapolis Photography Workshop Group, which he founded a few years ago. Not just supporting our mission to nurture character, courage, and confidence (healthy self-esteem) in kids 5-12+, but also monetarily $ as well!

We met at a local weekly networking function, Just Show Up, and as I continued to talk about The JNP Project, David began to become more interested in our mission and its results.

This is his story why he wanted to support JNP with donations, recognition through his business, and personal gratification for doing good for kids through JNP.

Click here to see the JNP DONOR PARTNERSHIP LISTING

Last year I went in search of a charity, program, or project to support in an effort help victims of domestic violence and to help raise awareness and prevention. I wanted a cause that my company, my workshop group, and I could personally give back to. After reaching out to domestic violence charities and shelters, making it clear that I was looking to donate money toward their cause, my calls went unanswered. This was tremendously disappointing.

I know based on my experiences from listening to people involved in domestic violence situations, and from reading information and statistics pertaining to domestic violence, that unhealthy self-esteem is one of the root causes that keeps individuals in these violent environments. Feelings such as “I deserved this” or “I had this coming to me” or “this was my fault” are, in a lot of cases, the result of low/unhealthy self-esteem.

When I met Dona at a weekly networking meeting, and heard what The JNP Project was all about, I needed more information immediately. I met Dona over coffee and wanted to know the nitty-gritty. After learning that The JNP Project is all about nurturing character, courage, and confidence in boys and girls in the five to twelve age range, while also helping them discover just how awesome they all are collectively and as individuals, I realized that finally, someone had the vision and foresight to tackle the self-esteem issue at a very young age, so that our children had a self-esteem skill set right out of the gate.

What could possibly be better for our children than to instill positive self-perception, self-respect, self-worth, and compassion towards their peers? Nothing that immediately comes to mind, and that’s the point of my choosing The JNP Project as the project that my companies will continue to support.

Let me state for the record that I am not a monetarily wealthy individual. Quite the opposite! What I do have is a wealth of knowledge and a wealth of friends and colleagues in the photography and modeling industries, and I am fortunate enough that these wonderful people will pay to listen to me train. I believe that there are many of us that have tremendous knowledge and skill sets that others will pay to listen to and learn from. I have given my time, and will continue to do so, in an effort to help our children and future children understand just how awesome they are, inside and outside, and thus will give them a good basis to make good decisions, and the right decisions, to ensure healthy relationships in loving and caring environments.

Join Jane, Jake and all their friends on the adventures to discover your inner awesome, together!

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Note: This Blog is a chronological diary of a start-up-company—The JNP Project’s Journey—reading it from the start, will broaden your understanding of the path we are on, together, and hopefully, positively influence you in some way!

Some of Positive Negatives’ work in support of promoting a positive self-image in kids 5-12: