2022 Year in Review: 13 Things Whole Champion is Grateful For

2022 has been quite a year for so many people. Let’s start with a few negatives before we get to the positives. It was the third year of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the year of RSV and monkeypox, and the war in the Ukraine. In 2022, we lost dear friends like Moriah Wilson to gun violence and others to accidents or illness. And Barbara Edelston Peterson, Whole Champion’s founder and CEO, broke her collarbone in a mountain biking accident from which she has only recently recovered enough to resume her normal training schedule.

But without some darkness, we don’t appreciate the light. So we give gratitude to challenges, to grief, for change, and for the chance to grow during all twelve months of 2022. The year, like every year, has been a gift.

2022: 13 Things For Which We Are Grateful

1. In spring, we got to use our 1% for the Planet membership and participate in the 1% for the Planet conference in Los Angeles. There, we met many wonderful people and forged connections with Henthorne of One Blue Ocean, fabulous filmmaker Liz Rubin, and Wyn Wiley, otherwise known as Pattie Gonia.
2. And speaking of Liz Rubin, we are thrilled with the trailer she created for us. If you haven’t checked it out yet click here.
3. In other news, A Whole Person Makes the Whole World Better, the book by Barbara Edelston Peterson, went into a second printing in 2022, with an expanded version of the original book, and it has done so well, it is close to selling out and going into a third official printing.
4. Barbara Edelston Peterson has also been putting herself out there in other ways, including being accepted to do a series of workshops on the work of Whole Champion Foundation (and on how and why she started the organization) at Rancho La Puerta next year.
5. This year, Barbara Edelston Peterson was a guest speaker at Montecito Academy in the fall of 2022 as the students were introduced to the Whole Champion workbooks and adopted our motto of “igniting global change, one person, one cause, one day at a time.”
6. Barbara also had meetings with administration at Santa Barbara Middle School, Oakland Public Schools, and Montecito Union, as well as half a dozen others.
7. In the fall, I gave a presentation to the staff at the Richland Public Library in Columbia, South Carolina, and we explored ways we might work together, including creating workshops on the three main components of being a whole champion: personal, social, and environmental responsibility.
8. In the spring and summer of 2022, revised student and teacher workbooks were published. These were adopted and used by schools in the fall.
9. And Treehouse Press, the publishing arm of Whole Champion Foundation was launched during the summer.
10. Treehouse Press will publish two books early next year, Barbara Edelston Peterson’s A Whole Athlete Makes the Whole World Better: Making Your Voice and Actions as Strong as Your Body and In My World, a children’s picture book, co-authored by Barbara and me. Both books are currently in production.
11. Whole Champion Foundation also launched its RedBubble store for merchandise in early 2022. Now you can get prints of the artwork in our workbooks or an apron, hat, or t-shirt sporting the Whole Champion globe.
12. 2022 also saw the publication of the organization’s official Brand Guidelines as well as an updated five-year Strategic Plan and Pitch Deck.
13. And 2022 is the year we raised the most money as a nonprofit since our founding in 2016. For that we are especially grateful for the increase in funds as it means more workbooks in more schools and additional programming and materials can be created.

Our list could go on and on as this year has been exceptional in many ways and it has laid the groundwork for a successful 2023, which will see the expansion of the Board of Directors, connections with many more schools, the creation of the first school-Whole Champion Story Walk Collab, and much, much more.

We are grateful for our members, our supporters, and our partners and we wish everyone a safe and healthy rest of December, and a happy new year.