When I first started blogging in July of ’08, Kids Are Heroes was in its infancy and I was still heavily involved with Wags for Hope, a local pet therapy organization. I wrote a blog post titled “Volunteer for Selfish Reasons“. It didn’t get much play since I wasn’t even on Twitter yet, but the sentiments behind the post still ring true. It may sound politically incorrect, but if people don’t get something in return for their volunteer time or for their financial donation, then they probably won’t keep doing it. As I write this I just saw a “tweet” coming through on my Twitter stream that read: “Volunteering is not a choice. It’s a responsibility.” Ashley E. Hyder was given the credit for that quote. Well I’m sorry Ashley, I couldn’t disagree with you more. As a matter of fact let me rephrase your quote to my liking: “Volunteering is not a choice. It’s a privilege.” In my experience, if people feel they must volunteer, it will become a burden for them and they will stop doing it. I have always felt that if a person feels like they volunteer out of a sense of obligation then they are doing it for the wrong reasons and they won’t last. I am in my fifties now, and outside of a few years as a big brother I did nothing in the way of volunteering. Am I ashamed of it? Absolutely not. Do I feel guilty for the “selfish” life I led? Absolutely not. Do I think it’s other peoples’ duty to volunteer? Absolutely not.
So why the change for me? Why do I do it? The answer is because it changed my life for the much better. I remember the first time I brought my dog Charlie to a nursing home and he brought an ear-to-ear grin to a woman who had been paralyzed in an auto accident since 1984. The warmth that immediately surged through my body was indescribable. The pride I took in my best friend Charlie was unmatched. Do I get something out of volunteering? The answer is “every time I do it”.
So what about Kids Are Heroes? You might be asking “what can Kids Are Heroes offer my children? The stories are nice and heartwarming, but what do my kids gain from joining in?”
The answer is a better life. A much better life, regardless of socio-economic status. I came to realize this gradually as I heard back from featured children’s parents, and as I watch my own daughter develop. J.T. Robertson is one of our heroes from New York. His mom won’t mind (I hope) that I repeat the gist of a conversation we had recently by phone. She related to me that she lives in one of the poorest counties in New York. Kids in her neighborhood are overlooked because the general feeling is there is no hope for them. For a number of years now, J.T. has been raising funds so that disadvantaged children can enjoy something he treasures — a train ride on the Arcade and Attica Railroad. This event takes he and his mom all year to plan. That is not all thirteen-year-old J.T is involved with. He brings toys to the hospital and plays with the children, among other things. (See J.T.’s profile on the Kids Are Heroes site.) He speaks at events and one of his speaking points is the Kids Are Heroes web site. It’s not “look at the recognition I got” — it’s more ”look at what you can do and how it can affect others.” His mom flat out told me that Kids Are Heroes is a great opportunity for kids in this situation to rise above the statistics that plague them. His efforts got him on Good Morning America. As a child when you see the results that you are really helping others, it gives you the same feeling as if you were an adult — it’s a really good feeling that boosts self-confidence and develops leadership skills.
Update: 6/29/10 Want another selfish reason for your kids to become involved in KAH? So they can participate in events like this!
When my daughter MaryMargaret started our web site she was just nine years old. She is now eleven. She has been involved in many volunteering efforts in those two years, and she would join us at the nursing homes before that. She has learned to think outside of herself which is hard to do for many kids. She has gained respect and empathy for older people, and kids who are very sick. Her confidence has risen immeasurably due to the speeches she is asked to give about what she does. She has just completed a year-long effort to raise money to buy MP3 players for kids at the Children’s Hospital in D.C. When she was just six, she spent a harrowing ten days there and thought that the gift of music will help that time go easier for these unfortunate kids. She recently purchased 250 MP3 players and delivered them to two area youth hospitals. What a sense of accomplishment she felt as it took her over a year to raise the money! Her latest project is called “Black to Blue”. She and two friends plan to raise $5000 to help clean the animals affected by the Gulf oil spill. The kids have planning meetings where tasks get delegated. This is encouraging teamwork. They plan to visit radio stations to enlist help. This will also boost their self confidence. There is a lot of research that needs to be done for this project. To be effective all three of the kids will have to know the facts. All three are very passionate about doing this which will also show in their presentations. There are just so many life lessons they will learn because of this project.
So what does this all mean? Am I in this for the “wrong” reasons? Am I only passionate about Kids Are Heroes because of the benefit to my daughter? I would be lying if I said that part didn’t matter to me. Of course I am happy that her efforts will help her develop into a well rounded, socially responsible citizen. But I can’t ignore the other perks. One of them I just mentioned — it’s very heartening to know something we created has touched a boy like J.T. in such a way that he wants to tell others about it. I enjoy every opportunity we get in meeting the other wonderful kids and their families who are involved with KAH. I get that same warmth I described earlier when my daughter brings smiles to cancer-stricken children by bringing them Webkinz she paid for from the donations she collected. I get warm feelings every day when people encourage what we are doing. I get a sense of hope dreaming about the global effect we will have some day.
So shouldn’t volunteering be a thankless activity? Shouldn’t we just do it without wanting anything in return? Maybe that works for some people, but not for me. As I have said before, I’m not that nice of a person.
This morning when I checked my Twitter feed I came across a particularly interesting question from my friend Eri. She asked me “What is your exciting plan for next year?”
Wow. What a great question. It’s not as if I haven’t thought about it, it’s just that noone has ever asked me that question before. I know that when you write things down more ideas come flowing out, so I decided to write a blog post about it.
Kids Are Heroes began in March of 2008, so we are just finishing up our second year. During that time we have featured close to 100 kids, had two Kids Are Heroes Days and been on Virgin Atlantic planes for one month, thanks to Sir Richard Branson. We have also created our first major project where we plan to involve kids from all over. I am happy with our progress, especially since we have become involved with social media. But at the moment we are still very small with big plans.
It is hard to develop exact timetables, especially when I know that there are so many unknowns. A lot of what we do will depend on what kind of financial help we can get. We are lucky to have a few business partners who support us but I would sure love to get a bunch more. :) Having said that plans are meant to be flexible, so let me at least speak to what we would like to do.
Drill our first well with the help of kids out there who don’t have their own project. We still want to encourage kids to follow their own passions, but also want to offer an alternative. This will be done through Project KAH2O.
Develop other projects so kids can select among them.
Secure our 501c3 status.
Finish our business plan (will it ever be finished?).
Provide funding for more kids to attend Kids Are Heroes Day in October.
Feature at least 150 more kids.
Start to provide web site development to help jump-start kids’ projects.
Develop materials that can be sent to schools. This will include a video (already produced) explaining what we do at Kids Are Heroes along with added resources.
Achieve mentions in several national media outlets.
Start to travel the country to spead the word.
We have felt from the beginning that Kids Are Heroes is something that works in every community and hope it will eventually become a household word. Just the other night my 11-year-old daughter MaryMargaret received an email from a 12-year-old girl named Lily. She is just getting started in her project to “help the world in its desperate struggle to stop the pollution and clean up our mess.” She noted that MaryMargaret “had some experience” and could she “give me some advice”. This is another role we really hope to develop — to help nurture kids’ ideas and help them maintain their focus so they can follow through with their projects. You bet we are following up with Lily and watching her progress.
So, I welcome the next year and hope we can indeed accomplish many of those things. One thing I am sure of, we will certainly be writing about it along the way!
From left to right: John, Evan, Mercy, Mandy, MaryMargaret and Casey (or as MM affectionately calls her: "Mini-Me")
I just love it when we have opportunities to get the kids from the Kids Are Heroes web site together. Our latest opportunity was yesterday in Baker Park, a beautiful setting in downtown Frederick, MD. Mary Kate McKenna, of Mary Kate McKenna Photography was generous enough to lend us her talents and take pictures of several heroes who participated in this get-together. There were boys and girls of ages ranging from five to ten years old, but none of that mattered when they were allowed to play together. There was a baseball diamond adjacent to the photo shoot, and it wasn’t too long before they were laughing together while chasing each other around the bases.
And what a photo shoot it was. Mary Kate as you can see is a very talented photographer. She has also availed herself for Kids Are Heroes Day, which will be held at the Francis Scott Key Mall on October 24, 2009. I encourage you to take a look at her amazing work, which features the following children from our web site: Casey, Kyle, John, MaryMargaret, Mandy, Mercy and Evan. If you comment on the photos she will donate to one of the hero’s causes, so please feel free to tell her how great the pictures are!
It’s been just over a year since MaryMargaret and I created the Kids Are Heroes web site. Quite a bit has happened since then, especially in the last five months due to my Twitter involvement. We have over 50 children that we recognize – they hail from as close as a few houses down our street to as far away as Texas, California and Alberta, Canada. Every once in a while I will do a web search on “kidsareheroes.com” as I did this morning only to discover many more sites referencing us – some I knew about and others I did not. I did find an independent review of us that was done without our knowledge and/or participation by Dana from Common Sense Media. I think it accurately depicts us a a grass roots movement with a lot of potential once funded.
Speaking of which, this month is particularly exciting for us as our pitch is now airborne (all throughout the month of June) on all Virgin Atlantic flights thanks to Richard Branson (@richardbranson) and his Pitch TV concept. We entered this contest in April and have the great fortune of winning and being featured first on the debut of his PitchTV show. We can only dream of the possibilities that may unfold from this opportunity.
< Richard Branson’s Premiere PitchTV Show
That certainly doesn’t mean we can sit and wait by the phone. That is not an activity that sits well with me, anyway. Although the idea of the pitch is to connect with a person or group that has the ability to fund our idea so we can take it to a global level, there is no guarantee this will happen right away or even at all. So for us it is business as usual. We will continue to speak at events and schools when invited, try to uncover and recognize new heroes, help kids and parents get started and of course tweet about it on Twitter along the way. We ask all of you to continue to spread the word about what we are doing and sooner or later this will become my life’s work as is my goal.
I really would like to thank the folks that have supported us up to this point. There are so many of you who have been doing just that – if it weren’t for you we would never have had a chance at winning the PitchTV contest. John Haydon (@johnhaydon) has been very generous as of late in creating innovative posts about our efforts. I must acknowledge again the support from @SocialPMChick for writing a very nice post about us, as well as @LoobaLee for generating a contest around voting for us. @GinaRau has run several posts focusing on our heroes. @Jyl_MomIF invited us to be guest tweeters for their GNO party which was a lot of fun. @Tumblondad interviewed us for our first podcast a few months ago. Then there is @MickeyGomez who reached out to me so that her volunteer organization can help us. I certainly cannot forget about my very own sister and biggest fan Maureen (@moelib) who has been “too busy” for Twitter as of late but is always very supportive on her Facebook page. There are so many more of you that are “religious retweeters” of our posts on Twitter (and Facebook) and I truly thank each and every one of you. The word about Kids Are Heroes is indeed spreading at a very rapid rate I am confident that only more great things will result from it.
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When I first started blogging in July of ’08, Kids Are Heroes was in its infancy and I was still heavily involved with Wags for Hope, a local pet therapy organization. I wrote a blog post titled “Volunteer for Selfish Reasons“. It didn’t get much play since I wasn’t even on Twitter yet, but the sentiments behind the post still ring true. It may sound politically incorrect, but if people don’t get something in return for their volunteer time or for their financial donation, then they probably won’t keep doing it. As I write this I just saw a “tweet” coming through on my Twitter stream that read: “Volunteering is not a choice. It’s a responsibility.” Ashley E. Hyder was given the credit for that quote. Well I’m sorry Ashley, I couldn’t disagree with you more. As a matter of fact let me rephrase your quote to my liking: “Volunteering is not a choice. It’s a privilege.” In my experience, if people feel they must volunteer, it will become a burden for them and they will stop doing it. I have always felt that if a person feels like they volunteer out of a sense of obligation then they are doing it for the wrong reasons and they won’t last. I am in my fifties now, and outside of a few years as a big brother I did nothing in the way of volunteering. Am I ashamed of it? Absolutely not. Do I feel guilty for the “selfish” life I led? Absolutely not. Do I think it’s other peoples’ duty to volunteer? Absolutely not.
This morning when I checked my Twitter feed I came across a particularly interesting question from my friend 
It’s been just over a year since MaryMargaret and I created the 
