Safety Quintin Mikell celebrates National Guard Character Challenge at St. Charles High School

In collaboration with the Army National Guard, was recently on hand to help St. Charles High School celebrate the “Project Leadership” initiative, a student led program that emphasizes character education. The program is part of an innovative Character Challenge model brought about by a partnership between National Guard and CHARACTERplus that allows 24 selected students to work together and develop hands on leadership traits. With guidance from a faculty advisor, the student led task force teams up to develop a program beneficial to the school community then introduces the campaign to the rest of the student body.

In this case, St. Charles High School chose to focus on the importance of developing strong leadership traits through enhanced communication skills.

Mikell joined Missouri Army National Guard representatives to headline an assembly geared at celebrating the student’s participation in the program and the effects the character challenge has had on the student body. Mikell shared personal stories in hopes of inspiring the students at St. Charles High School to continue on their campaign to develop strong communication skills.

As a child, teenager and young adult, Mikell has had plenty of opportunities to fine tune his communication skills. Although he was born in New Orleans, he was raised in Indianapolis and went to high school in Portland, Oregon. He was an undrafted free agent out of college and spent his first seven years with the Philadelphia Eagles before joining the Rams in 2011.

During this time, he challenged himself to meet new people and establish new friendships. His experiences are the launching pad for his current mission of helping new teammates feel more comfortable when they first join the St. Louis Rams. He challenged the students of St. Charles High School to follow their dreams and to continue breaking down barriers by projecting confidence through communication skills and finding strength in the consistency of one’s family, a message that will continue to be mirrored but the National Guard, CHARACTERplus challenge in place at St. Charles High School.

The development of the task force project comes as part of a new partnership forged between the Rams and the National Guard in conjunction with CHARACTERplus.

Now in its 375th year, the National Guard can be seen serving the community in a variety of ways through national disaster response, family programs, assisting local law enforcement in counter drug efforts and working with youth.

Some of the youth programs the local Missouri and southern Illinois chapters have been involved with include the high school games of the week, high school player development camps and the previously mentioned CHARACTERplus programs in partnership with the Rams and the NFL.

The National Guard promotes and exhibits the following fundamental values to soldiers and in each of their community programs: loyalty, duty, respect, selfless service, honor, integrity and personal courage.

For more than 13 years, the Rams have teamed with CHARACTERplus on a variety of initiatives intended to improve the camaraderie and attitude in area schools.

In that time, the Rams have given more than $150,000 that has gone toward character development training for more than 800 teachers and administrators, helped develop the Character Fitness program and helped the intended message reach more than 300,000 students in almost 80 schools.