Kids Care Clubs: Developing Charity Child by Child

By Kathy Saulitis

The Pine Lakes School Kids Care Club (Wayne, N.J.) members hold up their milk jug houses, which they used to collect $4,729.72. They donated the funds to Habitat for Humanity in response to the Southeast Asia tsunami.

In 1990, Debbie Spaide, author of Teaching Your Kids to Care, gathered a group of children to rake a lawn for an elderly neighbor in New Canaan, Conn. A few weeks later, the same kids assembled 150 bag lunches for a soup kitchen. Though the tasks were simple, the life lesson was not: the children were learning how great it feels to help others. They told their friends and in no time the group had grown to more than 50 enthusiastic young people. It was the beginning of Kids Care Clubs.

In 2000, Kids Care Clubs became a program of the Points of Light Foundation & Volunteer Center National Network. Today Kids Care Clubs provide children of elementary and middle school age with hands-on volunteer opportunities to help others in their communities. The program has become one of the key strategies for providing simple and easy programming for youth.

Kids Care Clubs form in Volunteer Centers, schools, churches, synagogues and community-based organizations. More than 1,400 Clubs are registered worldwide. Kids Care Clubs provide facilitators with step-by-step instructions to complete a successful project. They also offer resources to help kids understand the issues, including books and author interviews, compassion education and meeting activities.

Each month hands-on service projects are posted on the Kidscare.org Web site. Clubs are encouraged to adapt the projects to their local needs and to connect with the Volunteer Center in their community to find local partners. Projects responding to national and global needs and disasters are posted as well, such as 9/11, Hurricane Katrina and the South Asian Tsunami.

While some projects are local — the Volunteer Frederick Kids Care Clubs partnered with Community Living staff to restore and renovate homes for residents with severe disabilities — others are global. After the tsunami hit Southeast Asia, for instance, the Pine Lakes School Kids Care Club (Wayne, N.J.) collected more than $4,700 for Habitat for Humanity. Through many such Kids Care Clubs worldwide, young children can step up and show their spirit of service and philanthropy.

Kids also take part in dozens of programs designed for a range of purposes: to confront childhood obesity, help neighbors repair and stay in their homes, reach out to kids living in foster care, endorse literacy, help rescue animals, support the environment, honor veterans, visit the elderly, provide for children displaced by the storms of 2005 and cheer up thousands of homeless children.

The benefits of reaching out to others can be transforming to club members, especially those considered at-risk. Many of these children come from chaotic homes. Donna Vitualano, a facilitator in Bridgeport, Conn., describes her Kids Care Club as a sanctuary… a place “to express their creativity, develop new skills and work in a relaxed, encouraging, environment.” Kids Care Clubs members earn the respect of their peers and teachers in the school and the people they serve in the community. Children who have had behavioral problems stop acting out because they want to participate and be affiliated with the Club.

Kids Care Clubs prove that children are empowered by their contribution to the world. Empowered children grow into adults who make service and philanthropy a part of their everyday life. Service is a natural way for young people to assert their positive qualities. By serving others, kids establish connections with people of diverse cultures and economic situations, as well as, develop positive self-esteem and confidence. They strengthen their interpersonal and social skills such as tolerance, problem solving, communication and teamwork.

The power of the program is exemplified by the number of children and young adults who have taken the initiative to promote and support the Kids Care Clubs program. Last year more than 69,000 Kids Care Clubs members contributed millions of dollars in gifts and service. Micki Waks donated $2,319 — all of her Bat Mitzvah money — to support Kids Care Clubs programming; Catherine Carter, currently competing for Miss Mississippi, and founder of the Catherine Carter Prevent Obesity Fund, has donated $4,500 to the Kids Care Clubs Eat Wise — Exercise! ^TM project through a percentage of the proceeds from her children’s book. The funds are passed on to clubs through mini-grants.

Corporations and other funders also provide resources to support Clubs and the implementation of projects. Clubs have received coupons from companies such as Mott’s and Kudos Brand Granola Bars to purchase items for their projects. Most recently, a $5,000 donation from Home Depot provided 14 mini-grants of $250 to $500 to support Home Sweet Home service projects during Kids Care Week 2006. The mini-grants supported Home Depot’s commitment to the communities in which it operates and enabled young volunteers to help those in need of assistance in maintaining or remodeling a home.

Sixteen years after the Kids Care Clubs program was started, it is still not always easy to find agencies that are willing or able to use younger children as volunteers. However, increasingly Volunteer Centers are including elementary and middle school aged youth in their volunteer programming. In 2004, The Hands-On Nashville Volunteer Center (HON) implemented Kids Care Clubs programming to expand their youth program. In two years, HON grew the number of Kids Care Clubs in the Nashville area from three to 50.

The Foundation believes that Kids Care Clubs provide turnkey programs that both support Volunteer Center outreach to younger youth as well as encourage partnerships between Volunteer Centers and local organizations that might start Kids Care Clubs. The Foundation is currently working with five Volunteer Centers to develop a variety of Kids Care Clubs/Volunteer Center models that can be easily replicated nationwide.

A lot has changed in youth volunteering since those raking days in New Canaan. Today, both agencies and organizations not only recognize the power of youth to make a difference in their communities, they also are making efforts to incorporate them into their volunteer programs.