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Common Courtesy doesn’t seem to be as popular today as it was in the past, and family elders routinely mention the lack of common courtesy at some reunions. So, what’s a family to do? 

March 21, 2026 is Common Courtesy Day. If your family reunion is in need of a common courtesy make-over ask family members to identify what courtesies the family is lacking. Use the responses to create a list and ask family members what they can do to overcome them. Come up with a slogan or tagline about common courtesy that you send out with every message to the family. (Example:  Common Courtesy: See it. Be it. Do it. Live it.)

Ask family members to practice common courtesy every day until the reunion starting with saying hello and goodbye when entering rooms. Greeting family elders respectfully (Cousin John, Aunt Evelyn, Uncle Fred…not John, Evelyn, Fred). Using family-friendly language (no cursing, harmful slang, dissing). Putting down cellphones when engaging/talking with others.

Make a game out of it. Create Common Courtesy Coins that family members can earn. At the end of the reunion, the person with the most earned coins wins a prize. You can have categories of winners based on age groupings or generations. The goal is to get family members spreading respect, courtesy and love for one another intentionally all year long, especially during the reunion.

Reaching younger generations, building expectations, creating a sense of worthiness, building up self-esteem and high expectations, offering scholarships, and getting children to think beyond where they are, is highly important. There's nothing better than being able to offer real-life role models that look like you, can talk with you and can mentor you. Children need role models outside of the sports and entertainment world and that's one of the benefits of the family reunion. And that's definitely one of the benefits of reunions being more than just a picnic.

- Dr. Ione Vargus 

The best way to not feel hopeless is to get up and do something. Don’t wait for good things to happen to you. If you go out and make some good things happen, you will fill the world with hope, you will fill yourself with hope.
- Barack Obama

I’ve come to believe that each of us has a personal calling that’s as unique as a fingerprint—and that the best way to succeed is to discover what you love and then find a way to offer it to others in the form of service, working hard, and also allowing the energy of the universe to lead you. 

- Oprah Winfrey

The happiest people I know are those who lose themselves in the service of others.

- Gordon B. Hinckley

Not all of us can do great things, but we can all do small things with great love.

- Mother Theresa

Never worry about numbers. Help one person at a time and always start with the person nearest you.

- Mother Teresa

We think sometimes that poverty is only being hungry, naked, and homeless. The poverty of being unwanted, unloved, and uncared for is the greatest poverty.

- Mother Theresa

"There is no doubt that it is around the family and the home that all the greatest virtues…are created, strengthened and maintained. 

- Winston Churchill