Local Chapter Of Kids Care Club Takes Root At Hawley School

By Larissa Lytwyn

America is generally known for the generosity of its people; recently, countless thousands of ordinary citizens donated their time and money to the tsunami relief effort. These ordinary citizens include The Kids Care Club at Hawley Elementary School.

The club is a local chapter of the international Kids Care Clubs of the Points of Light Foundation.

Kids Care Club is a nonprofit organization whose mission, according to its website, is to “develop the spirit of compassion and philanthropy” in children. There are more than 1,400 clubs worldwide, including all 50 states.

More than 50 students are currently involved in the Hawley program, which is open to third and fourth graders.

Students, under the guidance of volunteer parent advisors Cindy Andreau, Nancy Scallon, Isabel Cummings, and Sandra Brazo, meet once a month after school to work on their latest charity-based endeavors.

“We began in September 2002,” said founder Ms Andreau, who first learned of the club through reading a profile of the organization in an area newspaper.

“I thought [the club] was an excellent idea with a great concept behind it,” said Ms Andreau.

Over the past three years, Hawley Kids Care has completed a number of projects benefiting both Newtown and the international community.

For the past three years, Hawley Kids Care has donated and decorated a tree for the Festival of Trees, benefiting the Family Counseling Center. The group has also held craft fairs with proceeds benefiting such organizations as the Housatonic Habitat for Humanity.

The students have also written letters of remembrance, care, and concern to area veterans, Ashlar residents, and American soldiers currently serving in Iraq. “We also sent care packages to the soldiers,” said Ms Andreau.

Last year, with the help of area business and schools, Kids Care helped raise nearly $6,000 for the Coins for Cure fundraiser headed by Ginny Chion to benefit the Leukemia Lymphoma society.

Recently, Kids Care sponsored a child in Nepal to go to school for $150, which they raised through performing household chores for their parents.

“The conditions in Nepal are really difficult,” said Ms Andrea, citing Nepal’s sanitation problems, sagging economy, and widespread poverty. Children, she said, have to pay tuition attend even grade school, and the majority of families cannot afford it.

“It makes the kids here [in Newtown] really appreciate the benefits of our public school system,” said Ms Andreau.

The Hawley Kids Care Club is also pen pals with children in a Nepal chapter of Kids Care.

Other international efforts the Hawley club has conducted over the past year include raising money for the tsunami relief effort and earning money through a read-a-thon that purchased nearly 50 blankets for Afghan refugees.

But the club has also worked in direct benefit to their school, cleaning books in the Hawley library and cleaning the trails and gardens surrounding the school.

“I really love the chance to volunteer and help others,” said third grader Sabrina Brereton. “There’s always a lot to do, and you learn about other places in the world.”

Fellow third grader Kirsten Liniger agreed.

“It’s nice, too, to be able to be creative in helping other people,” she said. “I really like doing crafts, and some of the things we do allow involve that.”

These “things” include the club’s most recent endeavor.

“Right now, the kids are making peace chains that they will be displaying in the hallways to remind everyone to be kind toward others,” explained Ms Andreau.

“Basically, to make a peace chain, you staple together links of construction paper,” said Kids Care member Shannon O’ Gorman. “But first, you put your name on it and get to decorate it with stuff like doves and flowers and stars.”

Another club member, Morgan Cutolo, said that the links of the chain represent a sense of unity. “I’ve liked doing it,” she said. “It’s fun, and it has a nice meaning to it.”

The club, said Ms Andreau, shows that kids are capable of a lot.  This is in keeping with the club’s founding in 1990 by Debbie Spaide of New Canaan.

One afternoon in 1990, Ms Spaide and her children, as well as several of their young friends, got together to rake a lawn for an elderly neighbor. A few weeks later, the same group delivered 150 bagged lunches to an area soup kitchen.

Inspired, Ms Spaide began the first Kids Care Club.

In 1996, the group officially became Kids Care Clubs, Incorporated as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit. In 1998, Kids Care Clubs launched its website and, over the next two years, the number of registered clubs around the country tripled.

The rapid success of the program necessitated the need for the support services and national infrastructure that a larger organization could provide to sustain the momentum. Thus, in 2000, Kids Care Clubs became a program of the Points of Light Foundation, nonpartisan nonprofit organization devoted to promoting volunteerism based in Washington, D.C.

For more information on Kids Care, visit www.kidscare.org.