The 6 Year Old The Hasbro Community Action Hero Semi-Finalist

This is my kid. My oldest son.

He is a

National Semi-Finalist for the Hasbro Community Action Hero

(with GenerationOn).

He is

6 years old

and in

Kindergarten.

Young kids can make a difference. I am grateful to GenerationOn for taking the time to get to know my son and find out more about him . . . and then GenerationOn shared the stories of the top 15 young people doing good things in their community! Go check out those kids! Go read their stories and share with your children what kids are doing. YES, KIDS!!!!

My Son’s Story
He first became involved in service at the age of 4 years old; he started recognizing that he had the power to make others happy. It started with simple acts of giving away his own balloons at restaurants and his own baseball caps at baseball games to other kids that didn’t have one. He never asked for a replacement. Instead, he would inevitably explain that he knew it would make the other child feel “happy.”

One day (at the old age of 5), he had helped make a donation to the Lion’s Club. After arriving home from making the donation, he ran through the house and brought to the dining room table $6.57 in change that he had been saving (hidden in various spots in the house). He announced, “I want to donate this to kids that don’t have homes.” That started his first of several donations to Captain Hope’s Kids. A couple of months later, he decided to do a bigger project to help children that are homeless with his Toy Donation Project.

Some of his projects:

For the Toy Donation Project for Captain Hope’s Kids (an organization that supports children that are homeless), he and his brother made poster boards that showed items that were needed. Then, every evening, he would ask to go to talk to the neighbors about the service project, going door to door telling them about Captain Hope’s Kids and asking for help. Pretty soon, other people were hearing about what he was doing. In the end, a church congregation, the neighbors, and a local business donated towards Captain Hope’s Kids. In all, 300 cubic feet of supplies and toys were collected. Everett wanted to be at home when the truck came to pick up the supplies that were piled in the garage. When the truck arrived, Everett was the fastest volunteer loading the truck and running back and forth to get the supplies to the on-ramp. The next day, he went with his mom to the toy sorting center to help with toy and supply sorting. He was the youngest volunteer there.

For his 6^th birthday, he and his brother (who is 4) decided to help the Children’s Medical Center and a local rehabilitation program by having a Secret “Service” Agent party. He invited his friends and their families. In the end, 14 families came to his secret “service” birthday party. That day, 250 busy books were made for the medical center, 20 happy cards were made, and 50 residents were visited and given flowers by Everett and his friends. A few weeks later, he went back with friends to sing holiday songs at the rehabilitation center. His caring and friendly personality makes it extremely easy for him to reach out to others.

The boys just finished a 4 month long project to clean the creek by the elementary school. At least once a week, they went (and sometimes with friends) to clean out and recycle the debris and trash found in the creek. To date, they have collected 48 bags of trash, which they sorted into trash and recycle piles as they collected from the creek.

Everett thinks that a phrase from “Phineas and Ferb” is accurate since when people first meet him they tell him he is too young to help:

Random Adult: Aren’t you a little young to [insert project here]?

Phineas: Yes. Yes I am.

Everett also likes the following: You’ve been given two hands. One to help yourself, the other to help others.

He says, “When you serve others, it makes others want to serve.”

Each day, after school, he is ready to complete a “Penny of Time,” a service act to help someone. His gift of empathy and single-mindedness in helping others has impacted his family and others that come in contact with him and the chronicled acts of service on Pennies of Time. Heis a strong force behind getting the word out that young children can serve, be kind, and make a powerful difference in the world.

Service doesn’t have to be complicated to be meaningful.

Service doesn’t have to take long to make an impact.

Kids can serve.

YOUNG kids can serve.

My son is proof of that.