Norwich — "My dad inspired me" and, "My dad was the heart of my life" are just a couple of many testimonials from a statewide fatherhood campaign that visited Norwich three weeks ago.

The goal of the "Dear Dad Tour," a product of the Connecticut Fatherhood Initiative, is to emphasize the role of father figures — and its first phase has wrapped up just in time for Father's Day.

The campaign promotes positive fatherhood and the family unit through videos of people telling emotional or inspiring stories about their fathers or being a father.

"We all have fathers and we are all connected by stories," said Anthony Judkins, program manager for the initiative. "These stories also help to understand the impact of a father who is there versus a father who is not."

CFI partnered with the Department of Social Services and American View Productions to launch the tour, which traveled to Middletown, Hartford, Bridgeport, New Milford and Norwich before coming to an end on June 9. In each city, the team set up a video booth and encouraged passersby to tell their stories.

In one of the videos — all of them are available online at www.deardadtour.org — Norwich resident Julio Cancho spoke about the lessons from his father, Jose Cancho, that inspired him to open the Peruvian restaurant Canggio at 20 Lafayette St.

My father and I "opened a restaurant two years ago in Norwich," Cancho said. "Owning a business is tough ... sometimes I'm working and (my son) wants to have a day with me and it's really tough to balance, but we manage."

Cancho plans on passing down the same lessons about balancing work and life to his son, John, who refers to him as a "superdad."

Judkins said he worked on Dear Dad Tour logistics for 18 months before launching the campaign in May.

Bipartisan legislation created CFI in 1999 and required its programming to involve five domains, including public awareness and policy. The idea for public service announcement videos about fatherhood came to mind to fulfill the public awareness aspect, Judkins said.

CFI received a $10,000 grant from Fatherhood Research and Practice Network, a federally funded group, to do the Dear Dad Tour and to promote fatherhood infrastructure. CFI plans to present a documentary of the tour videos at a summit at Central Connecticut State University on Aug. 8 and 9.

Judkins works alongside DSS and 11 other Connecticut agencies to involve CFI in other fatherhood programs across the state. These programs include career resources to help fathers with employment, "Families in Crisis" for incarcerated fathers and help at the Madonna Place in Norwich for fathers with children under age 5. The Madonna Place focuses on disadvantaged families and provides parent education, home visits and child-abuse prevention services.

Judkins said CFI's work continues to be important in part because, after analyzing state benefits and child support, he and his colleagues at CFI found that Connecticut mothers tend to receive more support than fathers.

"We're looking to rebuild the family unit," said Judkins, who said the tour offered a chance to tell men about other CFI programs and resources available in their communities.

Frank Borres, chief executive officer of American View Productions, and Elias Rosario, special projects coordinator at AVP, are the creative force behind the campaign. Borres produced the videos for the Dear Dad website and is putting together the documentary for CFI. Rosario has traveled with CFI and filmed the stories.

Rosario traveled to Norwich's Cape Verdean cultural festival on May 26 to gather stories. Rosario said some of the most emotional stories came from the festival-goers and the people off Norwich streets who participated.

Rosario and CFI said they gathered at least 50 stories. The videos and written stories also are on the tour's Facebook page, bit.ly/DearDadFB, and Instagram account, bit.ly/DearDadIG. After the documentary, Borres said the goal is to release the stories to public access television.

Even though the tour is over, Borres encourages others to add their own stories, either as a father or about their father, on the tour's Facebook page.

"These are touching and inspiring stories that have been therapeutic," he said. "This will bring attention to the need of fatherhood."