In this season of celebrating youth, one Rotary program continues to uplift and inspire thousands across Georgia — the Georgia Laws of Life Essay Contest. With over 30,000 students participating in 2024-25, this powerful character education initiative gives young people the chance to reflect on their values, share their life lessons, and grow into tomorrow’s leaders.
Read about the moving words of this year’s state winner, Alphonsa Joby, and discover how her essay, “It’s Not What You Got, It’s What You Give,” beautifully echoes Rotary’s motto: Service Above Self.
“The purpose of life is to find your voice and to inspire others to find theirs,” affirmed Stephen Covey, an eminent American author, educator, and public speaker. In my role as a mother, educator, and a long-time Rotary servant, I can’t think of a better way to describe the ethos of an exemplary Rotary program called the Georgia Laws of Life Essay Contest {https://georgialawsoflife.org/}. I consider myself fortunate to be a champion for this program that taps on the talent and potential of our high school students across Georgia while giving them an opportunity to manifest their values and world vision by writing deeply reflective essays as a part of the Georgia Rotary Districts Character Education Program (GRDCEP). It has been an incredible honor and learning opportunity for me to serve on the Board of Directors of this illustrious program from 2022-24, and to have written a series of stories on the merits of this program over the last four years. This multi-district program involves more than 40,000 students from across Georgia to participate in an essay contest, and recognizes outstanding submissions with certificates and $20,000 in cash to students and teachers. Sir John Templeton, the eminent philanthropist, first gave students the opportunity to take part in a writing competition in the 80s to articulate their core values based on a “law of life” that makes them feel both inspired and empowered.
This essay contest was officially founded as the Georgia Laws of Life essay contest by Sir John Templeton and the Templeton Foundation in 1999, and embraced by Rotary 2009. Since then, close to a million students have participated in this program to reflect on the values that are the catalysts of their character and are bound to act as guideposts to their conduct as they prepare to carve the pathways for their college education as the building block of a meaningful career. In the Rotary year 2024-25, more than 30,000 students from across Georgia, encompassing Rotary Districts 6900, 6910, and 6920 participated in this essay contest, sharing with us deeply introspective journeys of what and who matters most in their life. “The essays are powerful reminders that no matter the challenges we face, character matters,” affirms the collective voice of all the Rotary leaders associated with this program, including Past District 6910 Governor (2021-22) Mike Berg from the Rotary Club of Dawsonville who is also the Board Chair of GRDCEP and Carol Gray Walker from the Rotary Club of Midtown Atlanta who is currently the Executive Director of GRDCEP.
As an enduring school and state level judge of this program, I must confess to being struck with awe and admiration by some of the essays that I have read, imbibed, and learnt from in the last four years. Today, I am grateful to be able to shine a light on some of the state-level winners and runner-ups, including the state winner, Alphonsa Joby who presented her award-winning essay in a soulful presentation at the Georgia United Rotary Multi-District Conference at Jekyll Island on April 26, 2025.
“In every act of kindness, there’s a chance to create something larger than yourself and that’s a lesson worth living,” affirms Alphonsa Joby in her essay entitled “It’s Not What You Got, it’s What you Give.” It’s not just a divine co-incidence that the essence of Alphonsa’s essay co-relates with the central motto of Rotary in the form of “Service above Self” that we all live by in every single act of selfless service that we do in our life as Rotarians. In an essay abundant in lyrical beauty and figurative literary expression, Alphonsa uses a powerful metaphor in the form of “an intricate tapestry – subtle, persistent, and woven with purpose” created by her father “as threads that shaped her life” as a daughter. Just like many of us, Alphonsa looks up to her parents as her role models in embracing acts of kindness and community service. Alphonsa confesses to feeling complete and whole in the act of participating in community service along with her father, as she paints a very profound imagery of those who are impoverished, dispossessed and vulnerable, but are enriched, endowed and strong in their desire to hold on to their dreams and their families.
Alphonsa shares her gratitude in being able to help families battling food insecurity with food and essential amenities as the part of many community service drives, along with her family and an army of church volunteers. What inspires Alphonsa and her family is the feeling of fulfilment that we all drive from acts of altruism that are the driving force of the 1.2 million-strong global family of Rotarians around the world. As per the vision of Alphonsa, “The world often encourages us to accumulate … But giving had an intangible power. There’s a quiet truth that often goes unnoticed. The more you give, the fuller your life becomes. It feels expansive, like opening a window in a stuffy room.” Alphonsa made me feel literally and metaphorically enlightened with this statement on reinforcing the need for all of us to place others’ needs before our own, to give more than we receive, and to treat others even better than as we treat ourselves. Doesn’t this sound like the essence of the world’s greatest religions? Alphonsa equates this realization as “a revelation” in the conclusion of her essay. It would be my honest endeavor as a mother to impart the essence of Alphonsa’s view on the value of giving and selfless service to both my children, who have an aptitude for volunteer service.
Among the many other essays that I have feasted on from the grand buffet of the Georgia Laws of Life Essay Contest this year, the ones that have touched me very deeply are shared in the form of the “Law of Life” or a quote that has inspired some of the award-winning writers whose names and school affiliation are shared below. All of them are winners, in my viewpoint, because all of them have testified to being what Albert Einstein would have called not just students of human nature, but “critical thinkers” who will go on to be the leaders, educators, and change makers of tomorrow.
Moatapari Agbere, First Runner-Up from Chattahoochee County High School, 12th grade: “Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better, it’s not” by The Lorax.
Kelly Stewart, Second Runner-Up from Midtown High School, 10th grade: “Treat people the way you want to be treated” by his parents.
Om Patel, Third Runner-Up from Columbus High School, 11th grade: “The good physician treats the disease; the great physician treats the patient who has the disease” by William Osler.
Kinley Carr, Fourth Runner-Up from Bremen High School, 12th grade: “The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others” by Mahatma Gandhi.
Taylor Colwell, Fifth Runner-Up from Jackson High School, 11th grade: “Love goes beyond words.”
Kyendi Trent, the George A. Stewart Jr. Character in Action Award winner from St. Teresa’s Catholic High School, 11th grade: “Success is not final, failure is not fatal: It is the courage to continue that counts” by Winston Churchill.
Katherine Yang, the Susan G. Mason Founder’s Award winner from Northview High School, 10th grade: “Appreciation is a wonderful thing. It makes what is excellent in others belong to us as well” by Voltaire.
Hope all of you will enjoy reading all of these state award-winning essays in the 2024-25 Essay Collection eBooklet: https://simplebooklet.com/georgialawsoflifeessaycollection2025#page=1
As we all know, Youth Services is one of the Five Avenues of Service in Rotary, and we are also celebrating Youth Services month in May. I can’t think of a more sagacious way of ending this story that’s about the abiding life lessons imparted to us by the ongoing journeys of our “new generations” in Rotary than by sharing the view of Sir John Templeton, “Happiness comes from spiritual wealth, not material wealth … Happiness comes from giving, not getting. If we try hard to bring happiness to others, we cannot stop it from coming to us also. To get joy, we must give it, and to keep joy, we must scatter it.” Amen.
