Spring Break
UA student creates National Day of Encouragement
Traveler Staff
Issue date: 9/12/08 Section: News
The National Day of Encouragement, which officially will be celebrated for the first time today, was created by a UA freshman a little more than a year ago.
At a leadership forum at Harding University the summer before her senior year in high school, Laura Siegfried and a group of students were asked to find the biggest challenge facing teenagers and offer a solution.
"The typical answers were things like drugs and alcohol, but I thought it was a lack of encouragement," Siegfried said. "Everyone every day of their life … deals with self-esteem issues. Everyone can use a word of encouragement."
And now that the U.S. Senate has signed a bipartisan resolution regarding the National Day of Encouragement, the holiday officially will be recognized every Sept. 12.
"It's not just one event, one day a year," Siegfried said," [but it's a day] for recognition."
Since her proposal for a National Day of Encouragement, Siegfried has been aided by Andrew Baker, a professor at Harding who is now the executive director of the Encouragement Foundation.
"Encouragement: it's in the DNA of all people, the need to have it and the ability to give it," Baker said. "One of the challenges with encouragement is people knowing they really can do it. It's just as simply as saying something to someone else, all the way up to huge things."
Whether participants decide to send letters of encouragement to soldiers or teachers, help raise funds for victims of recent hurricanes or donate blood at local blood drives, "you impact someone," Siegfried said.
"It can be something as simple as setting aside your differences and looking for the good in others," she said. "You never know for that one individual how powerful that might be."
Alexandra Kosmitis, president of Siegfried's sorority Zeta Tau Alpha, said she and other sorority members plan to hand out cards of encouragement today in recognition of the holiday.
"We want to support [Siegfried] because we think this is absolutely wonderful," Kosmitis said. "She's done such a great job."
At a leadership forum at Harding University the summer before her senior year in high school, Laura Siegfried and a group of students were asked to find the biggest challenge facing teenagers and offer a solution.
"The typical answers were things like drugs and alcohol, but I thought it was a lack of encouragement," Siegfried said. "Everyone every day of their life … deals with self-esteem issues. Everyone can use a word of encouragement."
And now that the U.S. Senate has signed a bipartisan resolution regarding the National Day of Encouragement, the holiday officially will be recognized every Sept. 12.
"It's not just one event, one day a year," Siegfried said," [but it's a day] for recognition."
Since her proposal for a National Day of Encouragement, Siegfried has been aided by Andrew Baker, a professor at Harding who is now the executive director of the Encouragement Foundation.
"Encouragement: it's in the DNA of all people, the need to have it and the ability to give it," Baker said. "One of the challenges with encouragement is people knowing they really can do it. It's just as simply as saying something to someone else, all the way up to huge things."
Whether participants decide to send letters of encouragement to soldiers or teachers, help raise funds for victims of recent hurricanes or donate blood at local blood drives, "you impact someone," Siegfried said.
"It can be something as simple as setting aside your differences and looking for the good in others," she said. "You never know for that one individual how powerful that might be."
Alexandra Kosmitis, president of Siegfried's sorority Zeta Tau Alpha, said she and other sorority members plan to hand out cards of encouragement today in recognition of the holiday.
"We want to support [Siegfried] because we think this is absolutely wonderful," Kosmitis said. "She's done such a great job."
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