Helping Kids Help

When children’s enthusiasm for helping others surpasses their knowledge of how to help, parents, teachers, camp counselors, and group leaders are often called on to give direction. Helping Kids Help provides adult mentors with answers to questions they face. How can kids evaluate and select the best charity for their contributions?Should children perform a team-building exercise before they begin a project?What parental permission issues are involved?For ongoing service projects, should the group write a mission statement? Open a savings account? Or file for 501(c)(3) status?Helping Kids Help contains dozens of real-life examples of adults and children involved in service projects—the struggles they overcame, the lessons they learned, and the benefits they enjoyed. It also includes specific project ideas, Web sites, and additional resources to explore. This valuable handbook will help you develop projects that benefit not only those being served, but the children doing the service, developing life skills such as commitment, sacrifice, cooperation, tolerance, and even valuable career skills. Everyone wins!

Renee Heiss was born in Princeton, New Jersey, and taught child development for twenty-five years. She retired in 2009 to pursue a full-time career in writing. She is the author of Feng Shui for the Classroom and Somebody Cares! She has also been a contributing author to Crinkles magazine and has authored hundreds of other articles and stories for children in such magazines as Highlights for Children, Fun for Kidz, and Story Friends.