YesKidzCan!

Youth Around the World Unite Through Roots & Shoots

YesKidzCan! — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 12:00:01 +0000

Many of you may be familiar with Dr. Jane Goodall, renowned primatologist. But did you know that she is the inspiring founder of an organization that is dedicated to motivating the youth of today to be the leaders of tomorrow. Roots & Shoots youth take action all over the world by identifying problems in their communities that effect people, animals, and the environment; implementing service projects and youth-led campaigns; and exchanging ideas online and in person.

The organization’s goal is to create a fun, flexible, and supportive environment where young people and adults can share inspirations, participate in special events and worldwide campaigns, and experience successful results. Kids from around the world participate in their classrooms, home schools, nature centers, neighborhoods, refugee camps, zoos, scout troops, and more. Projects can range from helping endangered species to implementing reusable bag campaigns to creating tree nurseries to promoting worldwide peace. According to Dr. Goodall, the answers to so many global problems are in the meaning behind the organization’s name: “Roots creep underground and make a firm foundation. Shoots may seem weak, but to reach the light, they can break open brick walls. Hundreds of thousands of roots & shoots, hundreds of thousands of young people around the world can break through these walls.”

Awards for Young Change Makers — Apply Now!

YesKidzCan! — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 12:00:58 +0000

YesKidzCan! has the first awards program to support kid social entrepreneurs — kids who create a product or service to sell and donate the funds they earn to a cause they care about.

Apply for an Award . . . See the Benefits

Our Social KidPreneurz Awards Program invites kids in grades 3-8 (with an adult’s assistance) to apply for a $100 award to undertake a simple entrepreneurial activity to benefit a cause. Many kids already do social entrepreneurial activities. Think of the kids who open lemonade stands and donate the profits to charity. These are our youngest social entrepreneurs. By exposing kids to this innovative field when they are young, we’re helping them to imagine more ways to solve problems. We want kids to believe they can use the power of entrepreneurism to change the world for the better.

To apply for an award, an adult sponsor (parent, teacher, community/faith leader) with an interested kid download our Awards Application, answer the 10 questions, and mail it to YesKidzCan!. We notify recipients within 2 weeks after receiving their application. You can also tap into our easy, age-appropriate, and free Learning Tools to get more information about social entrepreneurism.

Work Together . . . Inspire Each Other

We know you are busy, but kids need and value the support of an enthusiastic adult to do this kind of activity. It’s worth it! You will:

Foster kids’ imagination to create a project (large or small) that matches their interests with their passion for a cause;
Provide kids with rich learning experiences in areas such as business planning, economics, and community service;
Have a fun summer learning project or an after school, faith, or club activity; and
See how your kids cherish your participation and how they can inspire you throughout the process!

You can read more about a previous award winner here! Help us build a foundation for tomorrow’s changes makers. Apply for a $100 award with your kids today, and see what happens with kids and social entrepreneurism connect!

Random Acts of Kindness Week: Feb 13-19

YesKidzCan! — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 12:00:45 +0000

It’s Random Acts of Kindness Week, and our message to kids is: It’s Cool to Be Kind! And easy, too. Encourage your kids to smile at someone who is helping them, give a friend a compliment, help a teacher straighten the classroom, or be more patient with a sibling. Or take it to another level. Have your kids leave a book that he or she finished somewhere with a note on top that invites someone else to take it and read it. Offer to walk a neighbor’s dog or water the plants. Give your kids some quarters and have them feed a few parking meters. Whatever you do, it can be fun or playful. You can encourage kind acts toward people you know or those you don’t. Or, you can come up with your own “stealth” acts of kindness. Even if the recipient doesn’t know who the kindness came from, just knowing that you might have made someone’s day is pretty powerful stuff.

This Valentine’s Day: Ask Someone to “Be Your Volunteer”

YesKidzCan! — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 12:00:11 +0000

We are all used to the heart in Valentine’s Day representing love and affection. Wonderful sentiments for sure. Perhaps this Valentine’s Day, the heart can also come to mean acts of kindness. Instead of having your kids ask someone to “Be Their Valentine,” have them ask others to “Be Their Volunteer!” Kids often enjoy projects more when a buddy is involved. Here are some Valentine volunteer activities your kids and a friend or two can do together:

Make Valentine’s Day cards to give to a residents in a senior center, your mail carrier, or even a waiter or waitress you see regularly.
Package and send Valentine’s Day candy wishes to troops overseas. (Be sure to select candy that can’t melt.)
Bake holiday treats and deliver them to your neighborhood fire department or police station.
Buy a few Valentine’s Day balloons and surprise some young kids in a shopping mall or grocery store by handing one to them.

The heart has an amazing capacity to expand. Test it out with your kids this Valelntine’s Day!

Give Chocolate and Then Some!

YesKidzCan! — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 12:00:48 +0000

Boxes of truffles. Bags of chocolate-covered cherries. Sound like a sprint down indulgence street? Well, why not? Valentine’s Day is around the corner. But this year, you can treat yourself (or someone else) to decadence and give back at the same time. Athena Chocolate is a premium line of chocolate that gives 100 percent of net profits to support breast cancer research and education. (It is an arm of Athena Partners known for its socially conscious Athena bottled water.)

Athena’s chocolate line — created by master chocolatier Dilettante Chocolates — is available at retail locations such as certain Costco and Safeway stores. But, you can also order it online on Amazon. Seems like a good treat in more ways than one!

Give a Piece of Your Heart this Valentine’s Day

YesKidzCan! — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 12:00:41 +0000

With Valentine’s Day around the corner, we thought we’d share ways you can add some heart to the holiday with ideas for charitable twists.

Kids always like holiday craft projects, so this Valentine’s Day, consider having them make a Giving Jar. With this project, kids decorate and fill jars with special contents such as a portion of their allowance to give to a cause; kind acts to fulfill each week or month; or inspirational messages to pass on with the entire jar as a thoughtful gift. You can download the how-to kit for free!

How about making a donation to worthy cause as part of this heart-filled holiday? For example, you can make a contribution to the Make-A-Wish Foundation in someone’s name and print out a personalized Valentine’s Day certificate to share what you have done.

And it is always fun to give and get a few presents for the holiday. This time, you can select gifts that do something extra special by shopping at the American Heart Association’s online store. There’s loads of great stuff from apparel to jewelry to accessories and gadgets. You will be helping the fight against the number one killer of women — heart disease.

Just a few ways to keep the holiday fun and have a balance of receiving and giving!

A Bumper Sticker That Stuck

YesKidzCan! — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 12:00:31 +0000

By Lisa Novick, Co-Founder, YesKidzCan!

One afternoon, driving home from school with my daughter, she startled me by yelling, “Look at that!” She was pointing to a bumper sticker on the car in front of us identical to this:

Being an avid animal lover, my daughter understood the point of the message immediately. I found myself thinking about the bumper sticker all day and for days after. In part, it was because I like words — especially when few words successfully get a point across. This bumper sticker certainly scored on that front. However, I think the bumper sticker stuck with me because of the meaning in the words.

We own a dog, and there is no doubt in my mind that our hyper, treat-crazed, sock-stealing, four-legged family member gives more to us than we could possibly give to her. But beyond the understanding that dear pets have the power to “rescue” their owners, the bumper sticker got me thinking about giving back overall.

Whenever we have devoted time to community service, we walk away feeling like we got more out of it than we gave. I recalled the first time my daughter and I served a meal at a women’s shelter. My daughter was nervous because she knew we would have a chance to sit down with the women who lived in the shelter and talk with them after the meal. She was very concerned about what to talk about. We spent some time beforehand brainstorming about ideas to increase her comfort level. After serving up enchiladas, mixed veggies, and strawberry short cake, we took our seats next to Juanita — a beautiful, smartly dressed woman with bright eyes, and wonderfully quirky hair. She and my daughter soon learned they had a mutual love of all things sweet. Juanita was a chef and caterer and was planning on starting cooking classes for children once she got back on her feet. She started getting my daughter’s input on her ideas and they became lost in all the possibilities. My daughter loved the experience and talks about Juanita to this day. “Who Rescued Who?”

At my daughter’s school, we set up a community service project where her class wrote letters to military service men and women. The kids shared jokes, drew pictures, and thanked the soldiers for their service. I was fortunate enough to read the letters and send them off to an organization that distributes them. I was not expecting to receive a thank-you note back with quotes from recipients that emphasized how much the letters meant to them. I am not ashamed to say I was so touched that I cried. “Who Rescued Who?”

I never would have thought that three words adorning someone’s car bumper would have brought up so many memories and emotions. I never would have thought that a bumper sticker could capture the real value of giving back.

Military Kids

YesKidzCan! — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 12:00:58 +0000

Thankfully, people have become more aware and appreciative of all that our military service men and women do for our country. However, unless you are connected to a military family, it is still difficult to fully appreciate all the sacrifices family members make when loved ones are deployed or wounded. The kids of military personnel are often the hardest hit.

Fortunately, there is an organization that keeps these kids top of mind: Our Military Kids. This group raises money to provide grants for sports, arts, and tutoring programs for children of deployed and severely injured service men and women in the National Guard and Military Reserve. The organization has been able support every grant request that has come in. That’s great news for kids like Joseph and Ian who got to continue their karate lessons while their dad is in Iraq. Or, Logan who is able to continue his training to become a master falconer while his father is serving in Kuwait. Take a moment to visit Our Military Kids’ website with your kids, and consider lending your support. Read some of their newsletters together to learn about how helping these kids pursue their interests is powerful stuff in helping them get through the tough times.

Volunteering Boosts Happiness

YesKidzCan! — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 12:00:55 +0000

We all know that volunteering is a good thing to do. But, did you know that volunteering is also good for you? Research studies have shown that those who volunteer are not only happier but also healthier, experience fewer aches and pains, and live longer.

Gretchen Rubin

To learn more, read a thoughtful article, Voluntarily Happy by Gretchen Rubin in Good Housekeeping Magazine. A best-selling author of The Happiness Project and columnist for Good Housekeeping, Rubin explains in her article that people are happier when learning something new, teaching someone, improving something, or fixing a problem. Volunteering allows for all these areas and more. Just a bunch more reasons to get yourself and your kids out there volunteering!

T-shirts for Causes

YesKidzCan! — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 12:00:37 +0000

Here’s an organization to know: Sevenly. This relatively new online clothing store teams up with a different charity each week and designs a unique t-shirt that represents the cause. Sevenly sells the shirt for 7 days and donates $7 dollars of the purchase price to the organization. Causes range from providing clean drinking water to hunger relief to education to disease prevention and more.

Just goes to show you don’t have to give the shirt off your back to support a cause. You can simply buy a new one!