Credit: Image retrieved from http://foolishfire.com/2014/08/07/be-the-hero-of-your-own-story/

The Life Outside the Box program is an educational and crime-prevention program designed to support children’s and youth’s personal “grit,” resiliency, awareness of others, and sense of life-purpose by examining the classic superheroes in comic book stories. Every hero has super strength but also character weaknesses; supportive allies but also a taunting arch-nemesis; and many failed attempts but ultimately the “epic save!” Through writing and drawing comics, children and youth learn that the greatest stories are not the ones in which heroes are “perfect” or settle for the “easy, quick, materialistic” life, but rather the ones in which the heroes face adversity, learn about themselves, find their calling in life and then discover they are actually in the perfect place at the perfect time to “save the day.” The Life Outside the Box program is designed not only to encourage children and youth to tell their own stories by using the comic book style, but also, to empower them to see how they may become the heroes in their own life story.