National Best of All Award

GiGi’s is driven by 5 Core Values

1. Enthusiastic – Bring positive, high energy to your work.

2. Best Of All – We are always looking to improve every day, with all that we do. Challenge yourself every day.

3. Get it Done – Making things happen and blasting through barriers when needed. Figure it out together.

4. Believe – Believe in ourselves, believe in our mission, and believe in each other.

5. Locally Concerned, Enterprise Minded – To best serve our local communities, we share best practices and have the humility to leverage the collective learnings from across GiGi’s network.

Every year at the National GiGi’s Conference, Playhouses are recognized for standing out in one of the 5 areas. This year our Playhouse was recognized in the Best of All category. Below was the introduction and announcement for the award.

The 2022 Best of All Award is for a Playhouse that leads from behind, quietly packing in all the tools and resources to do (almost) everything right.  This Playhouse has a long history and always finds a way to get better in every way.  Their team has solid leaders at the helm both on the board and in the Playhouse who are dedicated to continuous improvement in all areas.  This year, they expanded their facility, and their monthly program hours are nearly 60% greater than they were pre-pandemic!  Meanwhile, their volunteers are also dedicating nearly twice as many hours per month.  On top of that, they graciously provide exceptional guidance to others with their top-performing GiGiFIT Acceptance Challenge (GFAC) events. Never cutting a corner, and always striving to give their Best of All, this year’s Core Values Winner for Best of All is GiGi’s Playhouse Quad Cities

Our staff, board, and volunteers that were in attendance at the conference were all shocked and lots of tears were shed. Those that know our Site Director knows she likes to plan and coming up with the perfect words to say thank you on the stage was difficult. Even though earlier in the conference her words of advice to others were to “Be Ready for Anything”! SHE was NOT ready for that!

We have a short video clip here from that night for you to see but she’d like to expand on that below.

This achievement was very personal for me because my goal in life has always been to learn something new every day and here at GiGi’s that is possible. There are daily changes/challenges and with each one, I always set personal goals that are often higher than the goals that our team/committees set. However, just because it’s my personal goal does not mean that I do it alone. We have such an amazing team in place! Everyone has helped with the expansion, the increased programming and volunteer hours AND hosting a top performing GFAC event (aka Superhero 5k, 1 Mile Walk, and Kids Dash). Together in 2021-2022, we achieved our Best of All.

Early in the conference our Board President Chad Johnson was asked to share 2 words. One word to describe 2022 and the other for the upcoming year. He used flourishing for 2022 and traction for 2023. So while we have flourished this year we are just gaining traction to make next year even better.  We hope you’ll join us! Whether that is participating in programs, volunteering, or donating to help our Playhouse continue to be the best it can be. Without you, we cannot do what we do! Thank you to everyone that has been part of our best of all year!

Staff, Board & GiGi Staff, Board & GiGi

 

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