Dear Marriage Supporter,

We want you to know about a positive campaign to help marriages. This week leading up to Valentine's Day is National Marriage Week USA (Feb. 7-14), which focuses solely on reducing divorce, promoting marriage over cohabitation, and promoting marriage prior to childbearing — for better outcomes of raising children, and to reduce poverty.

In just its fourth year, there are 1,000 marriage classes, conferences and events being mobilized across the country, with huge potential for growth each year. You may find an event near you or post (for free) any marriage education activity that you are hosting at any time of year at http://www.nationalmarriageweekusa.org/find-events-in-your-area.

Local stories include creative ideas, such as a group in Kankakee County, Illinois, which is setting up a booth in a shopping mall from February 7 to14, offering free marriage counseling services. A team in the Chicago area is mobilizing hundreds of Date Night events. A Louisiana group is seeking its state's top 10 longest married couples to be publicized as was last year's honoree couple, who were married for 81 years! A Sweetheart Dinner and Dance in Ohio will offer a renewal of vows ceremony. Marriage tips and more stories are also at www.NationalMarriageWeekUSA.org.

It has been long proven that children fare best at every level if they can grow up with both their father and mother. Since more than 40 percent of U.S. babies today are born out of wedlock (which is the greatest predictor of poverty for women and children), and we have an alarming drop in marriage rates — nearly 80% of all adults were married in 1970, only 52% today — the need is greater than ever for a positive effort to promote a vibrant marriage culture in America.

The Brookings Institution says that if the U.S. had the marriage rate today that it had in 1970, there would be a 25 percent drop in poverty. The Heritage Foundation says that marriage drops the probability of a child living in poverty by 82 percent.

National Marriage Week USA encourages citizens, organizations, and houses of worship to launch marriage education classes and events, to list them on the National Calendar at www.NationalMarriageWeekUSA.org, and encourages individuals to find an event near them to help their own marriage, or help others.

There is a Tool Kit with easy-to-use ideas for curricula, videos, links to the latest research, talking points, and media tools to help leaders or churches build a local marriage week campaign at www.NationalMarriageWeekUSA.org.

Please consider joining this helpful and hopeful national effort for a positive campaign to help marriages, reduce poverty, and to reach out and help others! To learn more during this year's event week, and to be kept informed leading into next year's efforts, please LIKE this project on Facebook or Register at www.NationalMarriageWeekUSA.org.