As we are in the middle of planning our annual FLEX Presents event, recognition is on our minds. Why do we spend time and effort to recognize young professionals?

Giving to the community can be tireless. Spending hours volunteering and helping others includes large amounts of time and energy, but our communities depend on people being willing to do things they are not necessarily compensated for.

We recognize young professionals at FLEX Presents to provide:

• Encouragement: It motivates those recognized to continue working hard and lets them know their efforts have not gone unnoticed.
• Inspiration: It inspires other young professionals to follow in the footsteps of those being recognized, and can provide great examples of how to balance work, family, and community.
• Acknowledgement: It not only inspires others, but shows that there ARE young people making a difference and being successful in our community. We often hear negative talk about young professionals leaving the area, and this event is a perfect example of how that is untrue.
• Awareness: Recognition isn’t only about the individual, it sheds light on the causes or organizations that nominees are involved with, helping others to learn more about them and hopefully inspiring more people to get involved with local organizations.

Recognition is about coming together to inspire and uplift individuals, organizations, and the entire community.

We hope you’ll join us in recognizing young professionals at FLEX Presents on Friday, April 17, at Clarion University – Venango.

This article was published in the Future Leaders & Entrepreneurs Exchange’s (FLEX) March 2020 edition of the FLEX Your Ideas (FYI) Newsletter.