Some ideas are so good you wonder why no one thought of them before. But one thing is for certain: there’s no age limit on a great idea. Here are three great ones from three remarkable kids.
KIDS F.A.C.E.
Melissa Poe was 9 years old when she started Kids for a Clean Environment (Kids F.A.C.E) at Percy Priest Elementary in Nashville, Tennessee, in 1989. The original club—Melissa and five of her friends—began recycling, picking up litter, planting trees, and inviting other kids to join them. Then Melissa wrote this letter to President George H. W. Bush:
Dear Mr. President,
Please do something about pollution. I want to live till I am 100 years old. Mr. President, if you ignore this letter, we will all die of pollution. Please help!
The president didn’t respond, but Melissa didn’t give up. She got a local advertising company to reproduce her letter on a billboard (for free). Then she appeared on The Today Show. From that she was able to get her letter displayed on 250 more billboards across the country. Soon, letters started coming in from kids around the country, asking how they could join her club and help save the environment.
From the original six kids, the club has now grown to more than 300,000 members from 23 different countries. And they are helping to save the environment—they’ve distributed and planted over a million trees!
First home computer to have a mouse: Apple Macintosh.
SUITCASES FOR KIDS
Aubyn Burnside was 10 years old in 1996 when she got her great idea. Her older sister Leslie was a social worker who placed foster children in new homes. One day Leslie told Aubyn that some kids were so poor they had to carry their belongings in plastic trash bags instead of suitcases.
Aubyn couldn’t get the image out of her mind: kids throwing their dolls, their favorite T-shirts, and their teddy bears into ugly black plastic bags. She knew how that would make her feel—like she didn’t matter.
Just In Case
Aubyn made up her mind to get every one of those foster kids their own suitcase. She started by looking in her attic to see if her family had any extras. Then she contacted her local church and 4-H club and asked them to help her. She called her idea Suitcases for Kids.
She spread the word to Sunday schools, businesses, and the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts. Result: within a month, Aubyn had collected hundreds of suitcases. First she gave them out to foster kids in her state. Then calls began to come in from other states. Foster kids all over America needed suitcases. By the end of the year, Aubyn had collected and donated more than 4,000 suitcases!
The Barnum and Bailey Circus is the world’s longest-running circus.
Now, Aubyn works with her brother out of their home in North Carolina. Together they’ve helped start Suitcases for Kids organizations in every state in America, in Canada, and in 10 other countries.
KIDS CAN FREE THE CHILDREN
Kids Can Free the Children was created by 12-year-old Craig Kielburger, of Thornhill, Ontario, in 1995. Craig had read a newspaper article about the abuse of kids working in Pakistan. He learned that 250 million children around the world were forced to work. No school, no play—just work. That made him so angry that he decided to do something about it.
He started a program called Free the Children—a network of children helping other children around the world. They run petition drives and letter-writing campaigns. And they raise money. So far, Free the Children has built more than 300 primary schools worldwide providing daily education to 15,000 children. They’ve also shipped more than $2.5 million worth of medical supplies to clinics in poorer countries.
This organization is run by children…for children. Adults work as volunteer staff, but have no decision-making power. Only kids can vote and set policies.
Want to contact one of these groups and start to make a difference? For more information, check out our RESOURCE GUIDE on page 284.
Looney law: It’s illegal for cats to drink beer in Natchez, Mississippi.