Making A Difference...

In 2004 after Hurricane Charlie swept through Florida, seven-year-old Zach Bonner went door to door with his little red wagon to collect water, tarps, and other supplies. He collected 27 pick-up truckloads of supplies for those in need. Moved by the generosity of others, Zach founded the Little Red Wagon Foundation in 2005 to help underprivileged children.

In 2006 and 2007, Zach threw holiday parties for kids living in hurricane FEMA trailers and filled 2,000 backpacks with food, toiletries, candy, and toys for homeless children. Inspired by a documentary about Mildred Norman, the “Peace Pilgrim,” who walked 25,000 miles during the last 28 years of her life to spread her anti-war message, Zach decided to raise awareness by walking from his house to the White House. The 1,225-mile journey would be completed in three segments.

In 2007, Zach walked from his home in Tampa to Florida’s capitol building in Tallahassee. He raised $25,000 in 23 days. In 2008, he walked from Tallahassee to Atlanta to raise $17,000 for a Habitat for Humanity home. “Although I did not raise as much money, I think I raised a lot more awareness to the plight of homeless youth in our country,” Zach commented.

According to Ellen Bassuk, president of The National Center on Family Homelessness, approximately “1.5 million children are homeless in the USA at some point each year.” And it’s getting worse due to the “depth of the economic recession and the staggering numbers of housing foreclosures nationally.”

In 2009 Zach completed the last segment, a 668-mile trek from Atlanta to Washington. D.C. Upon his arrival in Washington, Zach met with Georgia Senator Saxby Chambliss and spoke with several other U.S. Senators on Capitol Hill. While in D.C., Zach slept at the Sasha Bruce emergency shelter.

“He is a very unusual young man,” said Deborah Shore, executive director of Sasha Bruce Youthwork in Washington, D.C., which provides services for runaway and homeless teenagers, including a shelter.

In 2010, Zach is planning a coast-to-coast walk where he hopes to involve kids across the country. To learn more about Zach and how you can assist in his efforts, visit his web site, http://littleredwagonfoundation.com.

Written for KidsTerrain.com. Reprinted with permission.

Politics Aside, An Inspiring Message...

In 2001, KidsTerrain co-founder and president Maggie Moran wrote a book for children about finding one’s magic. The Magic In Me offers a simple, yet vital lesson for our children, helping them identify the talents and abilities that represent the magic in each child.

Eight years later in his address to the school children of our nation, President Obama said, “Every single one of you has something you’re good at. Every single one of you has something to offer. And you have a responsibility to yourself to discover what that is.”

Now, aside putting all the political controversy, when you get right down to it, the message was a good one…and one I would think that every parent would, should, and ought to teach their children. The message was really quite simple: you’ll never know what you are good at (what your magic is) if you don’t try, if you don’t embrace the concept that failure is a necessary part of success.

No baseball player hits the ball every time; no ice skater executes a new jump perfectly at the start; no author writes a book from beginning to end in one take. A baseball player batting .333 (which is pretty darn good) is actually only hitting the ball 33% of the time. When a champion figure skater begins to learn a new jump, spin, or lift, he or she fall hundreds of times. And every author, every writer knows that rewriting is essential to honing a story.

“No one’s born being good at things. You become good at things through hard work,” the President reminded us. He also said that asking for help “is not a sign of weakness, it’s a sign of strength. It shows you have the courage to admit when you don’t know something” and a willingness “to learn something new.”

Whether you agree with his politics or not, President Obama offered an inspiring message: To be the best that we can be, to pick ourselves up and keep moving forward when we stumble along life’s paths, and to encourage our children to discover and nurture their talents…their magic.

Written for KidsTerrain.com. Published here with permission.