Major Accomplishments:  April 30, 2003 Winner of a 2003 Civic Empowerment Award from the Buffalo/Niagara All America City Committee.   This award honors individuals and projects that identified a community need or opportunity and created successful solution to the challenge they faced.

~ November 6, 2003 – Received U.S House of Representatives Proclamation from Congressman Jack Quinn praising the accomplishments of our community-wide character initiative.  

~ February 2004 – Hamburg’s character initiative highlighted in Character Matters: How to Help Our Children Develop Good Judgment, Integrity, and Other Essential Virtues © 2004, by Thomas Lickona, Ph.D., an internationally-acclaimed character development expert.  

~ September 21, 2005 – Presented Hamburg’s community-wide character initiative to an international audience of the “Building Cities of Character” annual conference of the International Association of Character Cities in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.   

~ December 6, 2007 – Presented Hamburg’s community-wide character initiative as an invited participant in the University at Buffalo Graduate School of Education’s Education Outreach Series on “Character Education: Fostering Respect, Responsibility, and Citizenry in Our Youth”.  

~  May 27, 2008 – Approved a three-year strategic plan designed to thoughtfully guide our community’s character initiative.  

~ On-going – Because we recognize the fundamental relationship between our community’s potential and the character of its citizens, we see our community as an extraordinary place because our leaders and citizens dare to understand this relationship and boldly act upon this vision.  Our vision is to build a stronger community by building stronger character.