October 21, 2008

Guest: Tom Peterson, Founder of Virtue Media
Featured Saint of the Day: St. Hilarion
Congratulations to Today's Winner of "The Pirates who Don't Do Anything, A Veggie Tale Movie": Mary Kluesner
Congratulations to Today's Winner of "The Five Issues that Matter Most: Catholics and the Upcoming Election.": Maureen Little

Today Deacon Rick and Jenny spoke with Tom Peterson, Founder of Virtue Media. Virtue Media has created pro-life commercials that share the pro-life message in love to touch the heart. Deacon Rick opened the interview by asking about a quote that is on the Virtue Media website:

"Public sentiment is everything. With public sentiment, nothing can fail; without it, nothing can succeed.."
- Abraham Lincoln

Tom spoke with us about how the media effects the public sentiment. The messages in the media reach millions of people. The average person in America will spend 14 years of their life watching television and 4 years of that is watching commercials. Tom understands the importance of getting messages into the media that can change lives.

Virtue Media has been making strides in reaching out nationally. It has recently begun airing ads on MTV and BET channeling pregnant women to www.pregnancyline.com. From there they are given referrals to the pro-life outreaches and clinics in their area. These ads generate around 1,000 responses a day. These women don't know that the ads are pro-life, all they know is that they are pregnant and need help.

Tom also works with Catholics Come Home, an organization inviting Catholics to return to their faith, non-believers to ask questions, and Catholics to dive deeper through the media. There have been 300,000 people recorded to come back to the faith through these commercials since they began airing. The goal is to begin airing the aids nationally, frequently and consistently.

Tom attributes all of the success of these endeavors to living the spiritual life. He stated that if he didn't strive to maintain a spiritual regime from day-to-day he would not have the creativity necessary for these ideas to work. Any triumph is by the grace of God.

In both of these endeavors, Tom shared that the goal is for consistency. To enter into the national markets with the help of financial support. He realizes that with the economics as they are that charities are usually the first thing to get pushed out of a budget. With Virtue Media and Catholics Come Home, these products have been proven to succeed and he hopes that those in the community with the resources will help the growth of these outreaches.

For Virtue Media you can go to: www.virtuemedia.org
For Catholics Come Home you can go to: www.catholicscomehome.org
For both you can send mail to: PO Box 1802, Roswell, GA 30077