CHARITY SPOTLIGHT
In Honor of Payton Rose Freeze: By Cathy Strittmater
PAYTON’S PROJECT
Payton’s Project is a non-profit organization begun by residents of Dominion Valley after Payton Rose Freeze ended her life Feb. 10, 2016, at the age of 17. The mission of Payton’s Project is to promote mental health wellness, anti-bullying, kindness and concussion awareness. Payton was a lovely young lady, a Dominion Valley resident, who exhibited these traits and this non-profit was created to honor her. Although COVID put some public and faceto-face endeavors on hold, we did manage to host numerous events throughout the pandemic. In 2020 and 2021 we paid for the first 20 cars lined up at several drive-in movie venues throughout Northern Virginia. Our goal was to bring awareness to the metropolitan area and to also spread kindness. At the Haymarket Chick-Fil-A, we donated meals to those who came to the restaurant on Payton’s birthday. Again, we aimed to spread kindness, awareness, and to pay-it-forward.
GOING FORWARD Our main focus for the next several years is to advocate and give grants to middle schools who want to institute wellness rooms in their schools. This will be expanded to high schools and elementary schools in the future.
Every year for the past four years we have taken part in Gainesville/Haymarket Rotary fundraiser to bring awareness about our mission and to support other non-profits in the Haymarket/Gainesville area. To date, we have funded six wellness rooms in Prince William County middle schools to assist in mental wellness for our children. Our goal is to have all middle schools in the county be used before, during and after school.
To date, the organization has given away $48,000 in scholarships to high school seniors and those already in their post-secondary education to be used for their post-secondary education expenses, regardless of their grades. Rather, the scholarships are based on the merit, kindness and ability of the individual to persevere. This scholarship is on-going.
We have helped fund, collect data, and institute a program called Payton’s Peers, a12-week modular program written by Dr. Jenny Mischel to help children who are suffering or have suffered from bullying. These children meet in small groups after school. The program is designed to help with self-esteem, develop strategies to overcome bullying, and give children tools to take charge of their own mental well-being.
Since 2017, a softball tournament is held every October in Payton’s honor with young ladies, age 10 to 18, in Prince William County. The event is co-hosted by the Shamrock’s girls softball team.
For the last three years, we have been a mainstay at the International Bullying Prevention Conference and the World Anti-Bully Forum, sharing our data and mission with other like-minded organizations.
We were recently approved by Prince William County Public Schools and Emory University to be part of a study for the effectiveness of these wellness rooms. We are most excited about this study! We will continue and broaden our $1,000 scholarships to young people who exemplify kindness/inclusiveness in their daily walk or who have overcome being bullied and rose above it. This scholarship is solely based upon their character and behavior. Grades, athleticism, nor any other talent matters – their BEHAVIOR is the criteria. The scholarship is valid for any post-secondary education including universities, colleges, community colleges, and trade schools. We will continue to institute Payton’s Peers in local middle schools and high schools, as well as continue to spread awareness of the value in kindness, inclusiveness, and mental well-being. For more information visit paytonsproject.org or Freeze Bullying for Payton on Facebook. For volunteer information, contact Brent Freeze at bfreeze@ paytonsproject.org. We stand ready to bring mental wellness to our schools and communities. Won’t you join us?
BULL RUN MOUNTAIN NEIGHBORS
MARCH 2022
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