The Importance of Social Fitness

In our world today, there is nothing that occupies a kids' time more than media -- not family, not school, not extra-curricular activities. A recent Kaiser Family Foundation study showed that students (between the ages of 8-and-18) spend an average of 53 hours on media each week -- more time than most adults spend at their full time jobs.

While it's a certainly a parent's prerogative to "turn off" these portals or limit the time spent using them, it's also imperative that we don't completely de-value the social, fun and learning opportunities which can couple these virtual worlds.

In a post I recently wrote entitled, "Empower Kids With Service To Their Community," I asserted that social interactions (such as project-based learning and community service) are the keys to unlocking a successful 2.0 migration for our classrooms, libraries and youth groups. Social interactions are defined as the actions two or more people do collaboratively to affect each other's experiences.

Interestingly, the need for social interaction is a signature of our "Homelanders" (GenZ), whose generational characteristics keep them in-tune with technology and innately eco-conscious. On a positive side, having grown-up in a world of anti-discrimination and pro-family legislation, it is believed that GenZ will be more diversity aware. On a negative side, their willingness to experience the world virtually suggests GenZ will be the most unhealthy and least physically active generation yet.

Study after study has focused on determining how much media has played a role in the nation's dramatically increasing rates of childhood obesity. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the percentage of obese children ages 6 to 11 increased from 6.5% in 1980 to 19.6% in 2008 and the percentage of obese children ages 12 to 19 increased from 5.0% to 18.1%

Three years ago, a report was issued by Nick Christakis (Harvard School of Public Health) and James Fowler (Univ. of Calif., San Diego), which revealed that weight gain by a friend increases your odds of obesity by 57%. Further, they asserted, the risk of obesity rises 171% for the closest mutual friendships.

This implies that social norms -- shared experiences and similar environments -- might be more important in weight gain than underlying strict biologic or genetic factors. If this is true, then perhaps not only do we need to heighten our investment in physical activities as a group, but also in the "play your way to fitness" products such as Zamzee, Playnormous and Wii which serve to use social and peer-group efforts to reduce obesity and spark a kid's interest in fitness.

This year First Lady Michelle Obama launched the Let’s Move nationwide initiative to teach GenZ how to reverse this dangerous trend. Last year, KooDooZ formed a strategic partnership with O2 MAX Fitness, a youth fitness media company whose mission is to make fitness cool, fun and social. Together we produced an interactive city-walk entitled "Tour De Fitness" (TDF). Similar to the Let’s Move campaign, TDF shows kids new ways to eat healthy and exercise, all while having fun with their family and friends. Click here to view our video overview of TDF ‘09:

The purpose of TDF is to raise awareness for the importance of both youth health and youth wellness. Obesity impacts more than health -- social isolation, guilt and even self-loathing can become wellness issues that follow obese people through their lives. Fortunately, obesity is both preventable and reversible. Even small changes to diet and exercise routines can positively affect health and wellness. Families in greater Los Angeles can meet and learn from Daniella Monet, star of Nickelodeon's Victorious, who will be hosting TDF'10 on August 14th, 2010.

• See the outline of activities planned for our TDF'10 city walk
• Register online today at www.bit.ly/tdf10 because participation is capped at 300 sign-ups!

Kids who would like to plan a family fitness event in their own community can learn the steps to do it in the KooDooZ Fitness Challenge!

Posted via email from KooDooZ

Behind The Seams - Redefining Beauty

WHAT "is" BEAUTY?

 
(definition #1)

The quality that gives pleasure to the mind or the senses - and is associated with such properties as harmony of form or color, excellence of originality, artistry & truthfulness.

(definition #2)

One that is beautiful, especially a beautiful woman.

The first definition affords us an opportunity to achieve "beauty" -- anyone can be original and truthful as well as artistic and excellent at something.  But by accepting that second definition, are we dooming our girls' positive self image?  Surely, today's girl is smart enough to know that she'll never naturally look like the celebrities in those air-brushed photos.

Why should the reflection staring back at us in the mirror be compared against the look-a-like models sashaying down the fashion runway, between the folds of magazines, on TV and in mainstream films?  Why have we allowed our own perceptions of beauty to be manipulated by the lens of a camera coupled with the skills of a Photoshop artist?

According to a national study conducted by Dove:

• 92% of girls want to change their appearance
• 7-in-10 girls feel they do not measure up in some way

Our children would benefit from seeing positive messages about beauty in lieu of the gender stereotypes and unrealistic body images they are exposed to today.  Consider this finding from a nationwide study by the Girls Scouts of America and the Dove Self-Esteem Fund, while 75% of girls surveyed say that fashion is really important to them:

• nearly 90% say that the fashion industry (89%) and/or the media (88%) place a lot of pressure on them to be thin
• 60% say that they compare their bodies to fashion models
• 81% of girls would rather see "real" or "natural" photos of models than touched-up airbrushed versions

Have we created an unattainable model of beauty?

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NGHNkfQPsvc]

KooDooZ event

To empower young girls, and redefine beauty, KooDooZ and designer Hanna Hartnell is hosting “Behind the Seams – Redefining Beauty” on Saturday, July 31^st, 2010.

The day will begin with an interactive Life Revolution workshop designed to help girls find their pace and unlock their potential.  The next hour revolves around fashion itself.  The purpose here is to help girls answer such questions as: "Why do clothes look so good on one person and not so good on others?" From body types to color compliments, the girls will learn what is likely to work best for them.

The final hour is wrapped in an act of volunteerism where the girls can apply the new skills they learned in the creation of hand-made greeting cards -- or as we call them, “caring cards” -- by using silk & fashion cuts as their design elements.  Each hand-crafted card will be donated to the American Red Cross, Santa Monica chapter, which may use them to thank or console their community in need.

By engaging the girls in a meaningful and productive activity that benefits a greater good, it is clear there will also be a benefit to their psychological well-being.  Over the past two decades, a growing body of research indicates that people who volunteer at young ages see health benefits later in life because volunteering brings a sense of fulfillment, a higher self-esteem and a feeling of personal control.

Behind The Seams - Redefining Beauty teaches girls that through their own creativity and generosity, they can use their arts & craft skills to gain the confidence in recognizing that beauty should be defined by what they do versus how they look.

H.R. 4925

There are actions you can take to support healthy media images for girls.  Amy Jussel, founder of Shaping Youth, offers a wealth of information about the “Healthy Media For Youth Act”, which takes a three-pronged approach to promote healthy media messages about girls and women.

• First, the bill creates a competitive grant program to encourage and support media literacy programs and youth empowerment groups.
• Second, the bill also facilitates research on how depictions of women and girls in the media affect youth.
• Third, it establishes a National Taskforce on Women & Girls in the Media which will develop voluntary standards that promote healthy, balanced and positive images of girls and women in the media for the benefit of all youth.

It's "behind the seams" that matters

Dove’s Campaign for Real Beauty video about the distorted images media can portray.

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Empower Kids With Service To Their Community

From our own experiences as kids to having kids of our own, each of us has an emotionally charged relationship with the word "youth".

Our thoughts of youth are shaped around the boundless possibility of new discoveries, novel hopes and inspirational dreams. And yet despite all of the energy, enthusiasm and capability evident in this time of life, the challenge youth have always faced lies in the fact that they are rarely given equal opportunity to affect change or have real social impact in the world we share.

For the last three years, I have researched, interviewed and collaborated with kids born roughly between 1992 and 2002, who happen to be folded between two generations – GenY, affectionately termed Millennials, and their younger siblings, GenZ. For our purposes, I will collectively refer to these kids as "Digital Natives".

While there is certainly a generational divide that is digital in nature, the larger gap that needs to be bridged today is more cultural. From the point of view of youth, schools and parents are not properly recognizing the profound generational shift in citizenship styles that has occurred.[1]

Characteristically, Digital Natives value experiential learning, working in teams and leveraging social technology. They want to gain knowledge by doing, rather than being told what to do.[2] Moving seamlessly between online and real world, these kids crave "virtual meets virtuous" activities that reinforce social interactions. Because they care deeply about humanitarian causes, community service is not just an option for these kids, it's a responsibility – so much so that it has become increasingly "cool" to "give back".[3] Nearly 8 in 10 youth today (79%) are interested in volunteering in their immediate community.[4]

What has become increasingly clear for me — and paramount to the founding of KooDooZ — is that three stakeholders need to be considered in today's world: (1) Kids, (2) Classroom and (3) Community.

Unlike other educational experiences, Service-Learning builds the bridge between kid, community and classroom with theory and practice. When done right, kids provide service in response to community-identified concerns and learn (i) the context in which service is provided, (ii) the connection between their service and academic coursework and (iii) their roles as citizens.

Despite the fact that service in a learning community increases GPAs and critical thinking skills among youth, Service-Learning Inspired as a teaching strategy has actually gone down from 46% to 35% for high schools and from 38% to 25% for middle schools.^[5]

While it's true that recent legislative reform (as evidenced by GIVE Act and Serve America)^[6] has set in motion a growing national emphasis on increasing students’ involvement with their communities, public and private schools are actually controlled at local levels. As a result, program successes are varied and inconsistent state-to-state and school-to-school.

Simply said, the concept of Service-Learning Inspired took off before the infrastructure was in place to support it. This explains why, perhaps, 77% of middle schools and 86% of high schools (which translates to 68% of all K-12 public schools)^[7] have concentrated instead on community service and days of volunteerism. Though these experiences still enable impact, it's impossible not to question the real win that otherwise would have been gained for both kid and cause had the system enabled a learning opportunity.

In 2009, 63.4 million Americans volunteered to help their communities.  This is an additional 1.6 million volunteers compared to 2008 -- making 2009 the largest single-year increase in the number of volunteers since 2003.^[8] Specific to youth, their numbers grew from 7.8 million to more than 8.2 million.^[9]

Think about this... volunteers in America provided 8.1 billion hours of service in 2009 -- which has an estimated dollar value of $169 billion.

With the bulk of youth philanthropy happening outside the conventional classroom, it is perhaps of no surprise then that one of the largest and fastest growing volunteerism trends in 2009 was family volunteering. I attribute this to the following reasons:

1. Today's kids are willing to hang out with their parents. Surveys show over 90% of youth today "get along" with their adult counterparts.^[10] The vast majority of youth say they have an adult in their life who cares about them (94%) — and of those youth — 92% specify their parent(s) are the ones who care the most.^[11]
2. Homeschooling, which has been cited as the fastest growing segment of American education^[12], often leverages volunteerism as a teaching tool, and consistently graduates higher levels of community-engaged citizens.^[13]

During a KooDooZ focus group, a ninth grader shared these feelings: "As a surfer, I know I should care about my beaches, but when I was asked to pick up trash for community service, it felt like a punishment. I had my mom sign-off that it was done, instead of doing it."

Were the same opportunity tied back to a [marine] biology class, or asked of an eco-minded group of students who seek out opportunities to participate in various ocean stewardship/environmental science competitions, such as Team Marine, the call to action would have been embraced.

Ironically, this same kid shared that he would have been willing to participate in a beach cleanup had it been coupled with something more meaningful to him. Specifically, this 14 year old gravitated towards being given the opportunity to teach autistic children to surf. "My problem wasn't really about picking up trash," he revealed, "it was more like…making a difference to fish wasn’t the same as helping people. And so, yeah, I'd rather do community service for these autistic kids, even if it meant I also had to pick up trash."

Adults who label Digital Natives as "lazy" and "lost" have misunderstood what they're all about. Not only do these kids want to make a difference, they have proven that they really can have impact — as evidenced by twelve year old Zach Bonner, who has for the last six years (yes, you read that right) been advocating for youth homelessness, and Addison Graham, who at age nine, adopted One Warm Coat as her nonprofit partner. Both of these young social entrepreneurs have raised money, recruited new people to the cause and directly benefitted a non-profit.

I profile countless examples of kids raising significant monies for nonprofits on the KooDooZ Facebook page and Twitter feed.

14 year old Hannah Taylor has raised nearly $2M to help the homeless; 17 year old Riley Carney has raised nearly $100,000 to break the chains of poverty through literacy; 11 year old Olivia Bouler has raised more than $135,000 for the National Audubon Society; and so many more kids like them are doing amazing service for their communities.

While young philanthropists may not personally be able to write a big check, the financial influence they do have should not be underestimated by nonprofits, foundations or profit-for-purpose organizations. Digital Natives plan to be generous donors, with three-quarters (76%) of them stating that they will regularly give to charity.^[14]

More to the point, Americans who volunteer their time and skills to nonprofit organizations donate an average of 10 times more money to charity than people who don't volunteer.^[15]

So here before nonprofits and profit-for-purpose organizations is a phenomenal life-engagement opportunity to cultivate evangelists.

In order to see measurable, repeatable and actual success with kids in service to their communities, adults need to understand and value the passion points of the Digital Natives.

The time is ripe with opportunity to empower youth to impact the world we share. Knowing that youth learn outside the boundaries of formal education, they need access to empowerment opportunities so that they can craft their own identities in unprecedented ways.^[16]

In this way, the skateboarder intense about getting his only "high" from freestyle tricks can be revered as an athlete capable of delivering a successful anti-drug campaign. A young girl passionate about writing can promote literacy to her peers by encouraging them to write a story that they can read to kids at a local hospital. A photographer, techie, financial wizard — and all the other multitude of things that Digital Natives happen to be — can be purposed to make a higher difference.

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Making Classroom Experiences Relevant

When youth are given opportunities to be agents of change in their communities and their world, they do more.

It has been with great passion that I have touted youth empowerment in both the classroom and the community.  One of our partner schools, Environmental Charter High School (ECHS), does an extraordinarily good job of making their classroom experiences relevant to today’s kids.  It is perhaps for this reason that ECHS needs your help.  Over the next three days, you can VOTE on which 2010 graduating class should earn President Obama as their Commencement Speaker.

ECHS students found out last week that their school is a finalist in President Obama’s first annual Race to the Top High School Commencement Challenge.  Abbreviated R2T, the program is designed by the United States Department of Education to spur progressive reforms in state and local K-12 education districts.  R2T is part of Obama’s push to ensure that by 2020 the United States will have, once again, the highest proportion of college graduates in the world.

More than 1,000 schools nationwide entered the contest, which required student-written essays to be submitted about how their school has helped them prepare for college.  ECHS also created a 2-minute video sharing how education empowers kids.

As an organization certified by the White House to give out the President’s Volunteer Service Award, KooDooZ knows the value and honor of having the Executive Branch in your corner.  So please spend a moment reading why ECHS earned our vote:

Over the last nine months, KooDooZ has interacted with ECHS students through a unique Internship Program that requires participants to take on an array of KooDooZ learning challenges. Content for the program is designed to create a hands-on service learning environment where kids discover how to turn their passions and goodwill into achievements and strategies for creating change.

Our interns are exposed to the initiatives of both nonprofit and profit-for-purpose partners with which KooDooZ is strategically aligned.  A successful outcome of the Steering To Empowerment program is having the students see themselves as global citizens and social intra/entrepreneurs. 

Recently KooDooZ asked our ECHS interns to create marketing materials for the benefit of Go Campaign‘s Kawangware street children initiatives.

First our interns were tasked with understanding why Kawangware is one of the largest slums in Kenya.  Then we asked them to consider these facts: (i) 65% of the Kawangware population are children and youth; (ii) these people live on less than $1-dollar a day; (iii) there is no viable access to proper education; (iv) there is a limited clean water supply; and (v) due to their poor living conditions, these people are subjected to controllable diseases that continue to take lives.

ECHS students were asked to reflect on self-sustainability opportunities that could be provided to help get Kawangware kids off the streets.  Only then, did we ask these interns to create colorful cards that would couple the Kawangware street kids greeting cards and custom silk screened gift bags that they are taught to make from recycled paper to sell to the safari tourism industry.

Weekly meetings with a KooDooZ team member helps the interns organize their ideas, come up with strategies for implementing activities in their community, and creates a forum for sharing with the rest of the group.

Self-selected by the students, the next KooDooZ learning challenge our interns will take on is a book drive to help low-income families recognize the importance of reading to their children at an early age.  This decision was made after they learned about the alarming rates of illiteracy, especially among their peers around the country. Collecting books that people have already used and donating them to places in need not only supplies essential reading materials to organizations and people without access, but also gives a book a second life, promoting reuse and repurposing.

From their Green Ambassadors program, where students are guided to critically examine and take action to solve environmental challenges, to their countless awards, ECHS clearly is a school that deeply believes in having education accompanied with real world practice.  Today on behalf of the KooDooZ team, I’d like to congratulate ECHS on all of their many accomplishments.

Follow ECHS on facebook
Follow ECHS on Twitter

Posted via web from KooDooZ

Youth Step Out With New "Thons"

AIDS Walk. Race for the Cure. March of Dimes. The concept of walking to raise awareness is a beloved and effective tool for supporting a cause.

While there are no specific figures on the number of walks sponsored each year by the 1.5 million registered charities in the United States, it's safe to say that populist fund-raisers -- like the walkathon and its cousins, the bike-a-thon, and the jog-a-thon -- are top picks. In fact, the top 30 "thon" programs in 2009 had nearly 11.3 million participants and raised more than $1.62 billion in gross revenue for charity last year (fact source).

The fact that anyone can join in to help remedy a societal pain is one of the reasons walks are so successful. From kids to senior citizens -- people with different backgrounds unite. In this way, nonprofits can engage the public in walks for visibility, participation, education and fundraising — all important factors needed to produce a powerful promotional tool for a cause.

But in the 42 years since the first U.S.-based walkathon -- yes, I was surprised by that date too (fact source) -- the format of walks has been transforming with the new strut of our youngest generations.

Both GenY and GenZ have added their own innovative citizen-spun styles to this old popular standby, and nonprofits should take note. No longer is the face of youth simply the poster-child for a fundraising campaign. More and more, kids today are emerging as innovators capable of "stepping up" as the new darlings of the nonprofit world.

Take for example 12-year old Zach Bonner, whom KooDooZ interviewed a few months back. Since the age of six, Zach has implemented a number of techniques to help raise awareness of, and money for, youth homelessness. He has organized sleepouts to give his peers a first-hand experience of sleeping without a roof overhead. He has stuffed backpacks and solicited donated goods for shelters. Most importantly, he has walked thousands of miles since 2007 for his cause.

Though he could have followed the footsteps of a nonprofit already addressing the same issue, Zach instead established the Little Red Wagon Foundation with the assistance of his mother in 2005. Since that time, this pre-teen has garnered priceless media attention, raised considerable monies, and has donated truckloads of aid to homeless youth.

Today, Zach has a camera crew following him as he steps into a 2,478-mile March Across America. In addition, a major motion picture is in development so that the story of this young philanthropist can be eternalized.

Few adult-led (or adult-founded) nonprofits are ever so lucky.

Another youth-led example includes 24-year old Melissa Williams who was recently interviewed by a KooDooZ youth advocate. Like Zach, she has not rallied people to walk alongside her, but has opted instead to touch tens of thousands of lives by personally delivering her message to the people. As a result her nonprofit, CA Wellness Walk, has harnessed the physical act of walking as a path to fitness—core to her cause of diabetes prevention.

Does it not beg the question: Why didn't Melissa simply participate in conjunction with a walkathon such as "Step Out" put on by the American Diabetes Association? After all, last year this organization afforded 164 walks across our nation, earning 120,000 participants.

Partly, the answer lies in the signature of Melissa's generation. As a Millennial, she is more likely to "mash-up" her own version of a walk. The way her generation sees it, Melissa's own quest for better health, coupled with her previous experiences of mentoring kids (11 to 13 years old), totally makes her an expert in educating people about diabetes because of how personal the cause is to her.

In just one class period, Melissa instructs students on the facts and figures that make diabetes relevant to them, then encourages them to unleash their own creative ideas regarding:

• the healthy habits they have yet to adopt
• the reasons why they may not be practicing these habits already
• the ways they can most easily incorporate these habits into their lives

As Melissa passes through schools, kids from each workshop contribute panels to her “wellness banner,” a visual representation of lessons learned about health and wellness. Long after her walk is done, the banner will serve as a visual representation of her physical walk: the distance traveled, the minds and bodies touched, the potential lives saved.

Personally, my biggest concern is that nonprofits are not paying close-enough attention to our youngest change-makers. Instead of having a public relationship with people like Zach and Melissa (arming them with the facts, figues and connections for change), it's the corporate brands (who might be focused more on "kid" versus "cause") that earn the glow of support.

This is pontificated in Zach's TV interview:

ANCHOR: In all of the things that you've done, all of the time that you've donated, what's the coolest thing that's happened to you through all of this?
ZACH: Well, ah - on our walks we have a couple of different sponsors. And McDonald's is one of our food sponsors. So one day we stopped at McDonald's for lunch (on one of the first days of our last walk), and a man came up to us, and he was talking to us, and he said, "Do you remember me?" and we said, "Well, not really." And he said, "Well, you held a holiday party for the kids at the shelter that I was living at. And you gave gifts to some of my kids." And even though this guy was only working at McDonald's he had so much pride in his job. And, you know, so much pride that he had gotten himself out of the shelter and into this apartment. And so there are tons of stories like that that just really inspire you and want to make you keep going.

I deeply believe cause leaders today need to take a closer look at how everyday people -- especially youth -- are reinventing philanthropy.

Ask yourselves: What would it mean if my organization supported a "thon" like Zach's or Melissa's? Remember, in Melissa's 6-month walk, she will engage 10,000 kids with diabetes prevention materials that they will take home to their parents. Over that same period of time, using a walk as a means of engagement, Step Out in 2009 earned roughly 60,000 participants.

A thought nonprofit readers might want to take in stride!

Posted via web from KooDooZ

Walking for Wellness, Youth & Diabetes

Melissa Williams is the self-described “fat kid who couldn’t run a mile.”  It’s easy to look at that statement and think that she’s being much too hard on herself, but it’s a realistic look inward that may have eventually saved her life.

After a lifetime of being technically obese, this 24-year-old Californian is walking 750 miles across the state -- from San Diego to Sacramento -- to raise awareness on the risks of type 2 diabetes.  Type 2 is the most common form of the disease, where the body is unable to really break down sugars for fuel.  When that happens, frightening complications can occur that may affect a person’s eyes, feet and skin.  Shockingly, nearly 6-million people in the U.S. have this disease and don't know it.

Melissa is touching as many lives as possible through wellness workshops delivered in middle and junior high schools.  She is additionally promoting healthier living through diet and exercise, and demonstrating the ways you can actually help prevent this disease by taking better care of your body.

Reaching out to teenagers and getting them to engage in healthier habits will, she hopes, leave a life-long imprint on them.

With 57 million Americans at risk for type 2 diabetes, current trends show one-in-five people are at risk for getting this disease.  For kids, Melissa estimates that the risk is even higher.  According to her, one-in-three children born in the year 2000 will be diagnosed with type 2 diabetes in the next 40 years!

Although Melissa is delivering some hard facts for kids and the adults in their life to consider as she moves up the coast, she is also leaving behind the hope and understanding with these kids that 95% of diabetes is preventable.

Tuesday, March 23rd is American Diabetes Association Alert Day.  KooDooZ is encouraging kids to get their parents to take a simple test to determine their family's risk of having pre-diabetes or type 2 diabetes.

Already on Day 70 of her walk, Melissa’s CA Wellness program has touched thousands of lives.  To learn more, check out Melissa's website and blog, follow her on Twitter @cawellnesswalk, and join the CA Wellness Walk on Facebook.  More importantly, listen to Melissa explain the risks you might potentially face through the body choices you make in your daily lives.

Posted via web from KooDooZ

Turning Volunteers into Leaders, One Warm Coat

Imagine a non-profit organization that has gained enough speed in only a few years that it has been able to touch — literally — hundreds of thousands of lives. Now imagine that same organization, far reaching across the country as it is, being a virtually “leaderless organization.”

How is that possible?

It’s all the more intriguing when the national organization’s president is the one making such an observation.

Sherri Lewis Wood, president and national coordinator of One Warm Coat, is making such a designation. As Sherri puts it in her blog, “EACH coat drive has a leader — someone who said ‘I can do that!’”

This kind of bottom-up structure is exactly what keeps One Warm Coat, through all its growth and hot media attention, a fundamentally local operation. Empowerment on such an individual level allows of a great degree of involvement, and makes leadership in community service more accessible to young people. So accessible, in fact, that in the last seven years, youth community service leaders have gathered a predicted 250,000 coats in their own local drives!

On the national level, growth has come organically for the San Francisco-based organization. A strong partnership between Burlington Coat Factory and Good Morning America for the nationally-run “Warm Coats & Warm Hearts” drive has certainly helped, keeping One Warm Coat in the public eye every winter while consistently breaking previous years’ records.

This year’s drive, which ran the course of the winter months, produced 219,762 new or gently worn coats—a 24% increase from last year—delivered directly to an individual in need.

Numbers generated by One Warm Coat researchers lead us to believe we truly are embarking on a new era of youth empowerment. Thousands of young people have taken it upon themselves in the last seven years to host coat drives—462 reported youth operated coat drives in 2009, adding to the running total of 2500 youth-led drives over the past seven years. Through the inspired “leaderless organization” scheme One Warm Coat employs, any child has the power to break down a visible problem in his or her local community and tackle it with tangible solutions and action.

An increase in the number of charitable donations to the folks at One Warm Coat reflects a national trend, where the Corporation for National and Community Service has spotted an increase in volunteer service.  According to a 2009 study, the number of volunteers in 2008 increased across the board by approximately one million. The role youth play in that number also boasts an increase: Numbers jumped from 7.8 million youth (ages 16-24) volunteers in 2007 to 8.2 million in 2008.

Here’s hoping this is a solid indicator of not only a growth in youth involvement, but in youth volunteer leadership. The KooDooZ Outstanding Youth Interview project though our sister blog, Cause4KDZ, has led us to some amazing teens with inspirational stories of generosity, determination and know-how.

KooDooZ recently interviewed Sherri Lewis Wood and Addison Graham, a member of the KooDooZ Youth Advisory Board.

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