Philanthropy Starts at Early Age in United States
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Teenagers and children give money, time to make life easier for others By Carolee Walker
“Young people have the passion to change the world,” said Nancy Lublin, chief executive officer of Do Something, a youth philanthropy organization directed by young people. “Youth are not the leaders of tomorrow, they are our leaders today.” Do Something, founded in 1993, began as a youth service organization with local offices scattered throughout the United States. Today, the organization functions nearly 100 percent through the Internet, with more than 2 million teenagers – mostly in the United States and Canada, but some from countries around the world – visiting the Web site daily to learn about world problems, participate in discussions about how to lend a helping hand and offer lessons learned from service projects they have done. Youth in rural and urban areas, for example, might choose different approaches and service projects suggested on the Do Something Web site that make sense for their communities but that have the common goal of fighting hunger. Then students take their ideas back to their schools, religious organizations and service clubs to involve other students and adults. A food drive coordinated by Do Something collected more than 1.5 million cans distributed to communities nationwide. Nearly 51,000 students participated from 96 schools across the United States, Lublin said, and the Del Monte Corporation agreed to match the total donation sum of the top three secondary schools with $75,000 in canned food. Do Something is guided by the 32 secondary school students on its Youth Advisory Council (YAC). The students, who apply for these positions and hold on to them until they graduate, meet in monthly teleconferences and are in almost daily contact with each other using social networks on the Internet, including Facebook. They meet once a year in New York for leadership training and workshops. An adult advisory committee offers mentoring and guidance to the youth leaders. YAC member Casey Rios, 17, of Brazoswood High School in Clute, Texas, also serves as chairwoman of her community’s Youth Advisory Commission. “We do a lot of helping out around town, including organizing communitywide or countywide cleanups and beach cleanups, distributing trash bags to everyone at our Festival of Lights Parade and Dunes Day to make the cleaning up afterwards easier for the city workers,” Rios told USINFO. These daily efforts at helping in the community are the heart of youth philanthropy, Lublin said, adding that young people are easy to inspire. Three in 10 university students, or 3.3 million people, volunteered in 2005. (See related article.)
Five-year-old Sam volunteers at Alex's Lemonade Stand in Minneapolis. Sam's brother, 4-year-old Carl Robinson, has neuroblastoma, the same cancer that Alexandra Scott, the girl who started the lemonade stands to benefit the fight against pediatric cancer had. Alex's front yard stand evolved into a nationwide fundraising movement to find a cure for childhood cancer. (© AP Images)
“Young people can do so much if they just set out to do it,” Rios said. “If we just reached out a little farther than normal when it came to those around us in poverty, or those who have little family, or have no family at all, we would see how even the smallest of gestures from young people can make someone the happiest they've been in a long time.”
Rios said her parents regularly help her in her efforts, and she plans activities with Do Something’s adult advisers. She particularly enjoys the diversity within the YAC and learns as much about different cultural groups in the United States as she does about service and leadership at the annual workshops in New York. Some youth efforts to support U.S. and world causes focus on fundraising. Dollars for Darfur, which was created by secondary school students at Northfield Mount Hermon School in Massachusetts, uses the social networks Facebook and MySpace to raise money at secondary schools around the country in an effort to stop the genocide in Darfur. “We got tired of waiting for others to change the world,” said coordinators Nick Anderson and Ana Slavin. Money raised by Dollars for Darfur support humanitarian efforts for refugees and the advocacy efforts of the Save Darfur Coalition. The top 10 participating secondary schools already have collected more the $10,000. Lublin said she notices young people are beginning to understand philanthropy at very early ages. In the holiday spirit of giving, National Geographic Kids magazine readers, ages 6 to 14, collected and sent more than 2,000 new stuffed animals to the magazine’s headquarters in Washington, where a Guinness World Record was set in December for the most stuffed animals in one place. The stuffed animals were donated to the Washington area U.S. Marine Corps Reserve toy drive supporting Toys for Tots, which in 2005 collected and distributed 18.5 million new toys to needy families in the United States. A second grader from Newburgh, New York, single-handedly ran a drive at his primary school and collected nearly 250 stuffed animals. Additional information on Do Something and Dollars for Darfur is available on the organizations’ Web sites. A resource guide for youth philanthropy is available on the Foundation Center Web Site. For more information, see Volunteerism and the eJournal, Giving: U.S. Philanthropy. (USINFO is produced by the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov) |
