The Jesse Lewis Choose Love Movement, a nonprofit organization created in honor of one of the first grade victims of the 2012 Sandy Hook tragedy, announced Tuesday, January 19, it has been named a recipient of a grant by the NoVo Foundation Fund, one of the world’s largest private foundations supporting the advancements of social and emotional learning.

The funding will be used to further the development of the Choose Love Enrichment Program slated to be released this year.

The Choose Love Enrichment Program is a social and emotional learning program being made available to educators for free. The program is grade-level appropriate from prekindergarten through twelfth grade and teaches students to choose love using the character values of courage, gratitude, forgiveness, and compassion in action, as well as the latest neuroscience and brain research, according to the organization.

Jesse Lewis died alongside 19 of his classmates and six teachers and administrators at Sandy Hook Elementary School in one of the worst mass shootings in US history. The Choose Love Movement is based on a chalkboard message he wrote just days before he died, “Nurturing Healing Love.” Those three words are not in the vernacular of a 6-year-old and were phonetically spelled, because he was in first grade, learning to write.

Those three words are in the definition of compassion across all cultures and make up a powerful and profound formula for choosing love, according to the organization. Jesse is considered a hero as he was instrumental in saving nine of his classmates that day before losing his own life.         

“It is such an honor to be awarded this grant by NoVo. This is validation of my mission to bring social and emotional learning to children all over the world and will enable educators to access these tools for free,” said Scarlett Lewis, founder of the Choose Love Movement and Jesse's mother. “If we can teach our children that they have the power to choose a loving thought over an angry thought, we can create a more peaceful world.”

The mission of NoVo Foundation is to foster a transformation from a world of domination and exploitation to one of collaboration and partnership. In addressing violence and promoting collaboration, it invests in advancing social and emotional learning to support girls and boys with skills that help them work well together for success in academics and in life.

For more information about the Jesse Lewis Choose Love Movement see the website jesselewischooselove.org or its Facebook, Twitter or YouTube accounts.

More information about the NoVo Foundation is available online at novofoundation.org.