Embark on your own Time-Talent-Treasure Hunt

Every semester we begin our grade-school Real-World Super Heroes program with an introduction to philanthropy.  We explain that everyone has three super powers they can use to help others: Time, Talent and Treasure.   We cite examples of kind acts and our new Heroes identify which of the three powers are used in each case. Here, you can give it a try (more than one answer allowed):

• Clean up trash at the beach or park (Time)
• Make a cool art project out of clean recyclables, to give to your grandma (Time, Talent, Treasure)
• Sing in a concert for people in the hospital (Time, Talent)
• Invite someone who looks lonely at the playground to play tag (Time)

It doesn’t take long for the kids to realize that Time and Talent are every bit, or even more, important as Treasure. Or, that giving someone attention or expressing “love is a treasure” as one of our young heroes summarized.

After everyone understands what the three Super Powers are, we set out on a Time-Talent-Treasure Hunt to discover ways to use these powers in our neighborhood.  You can replicate this activity in your own neighborhood.  Here’s how we did it:

Each hero was given a map of the neighborhood and clues to four locations. Upon arriving at each location, we discussed as a group how we could use Time, Talent and/or Treasure to help others given the site. As usual, the children came up with things we hadn’t even thought of. Check out some of their Super ideas:

Location: Post Office. Super Hero Ideas:

• mail a letter to your grandma or grandpa or a get well card to someone who is sick
• buy stamps for someone who is not able to get to the post office
• send thank you cards to people
• bring flowers for the post office workers (can you imagine how happy they’d be??)

Location: Preschool/Daycare. Super Hero Ideas:

• donate books or toys we’ve outgrown
• make a bookshelf to donate
• make toys to give to the kids
• be reading buddies for them or read to them

Location: Garden. Super Hero Ideas:

• plant flowers
• grow vegetables
• give someone flowers (if it is OK to take some)

 Location: Grocery Store.  Super Hero Ideas:

• buy food to donate to charity
• buy ingredients to make lemonade and cookies and have a lemonade stand to raise money to donate
• do shopping for someone who is sick or unable to get to the store

 Our Time-Talent-Treasure Hunt proved there are plenty of opportunities for us to be Super Heroes all around us.  It doesn’t have to be big and complicated. Our young Heroes received a star on their maps for each location visited. Back in our classroom, they turned in their completed maps for a little goody bag. Treasure well deserved!

Back to School AGAIN (as a mentor)

For high school students, back to school is a wild time of year, filled with hope and expectations and anxiety about what the year will bring.  My husband Greg and I are feeling these feelings now. We are halfway through a 4-year committment to mentor a teenage girl (now young woman?!).  So “we” are entering our junior year — such a critical time — hoping the progress made so far sticks, and that our mentee “K” has a breakthrough year.  K shines in personality and intelligence; it is our job to help her focus on developing her academics and knowledge of the career landscape so she graduates on time and faces an exciting future of choices.

Before being introduced to Student-Sponsor Partners (SSP)and “K,” neither of us had mentored outside the workplace. We were wary about over committing ourselves and probably a little scared of teenagers. I mean we are old (at least to a teenager). We don’t work in hip industries. And we knew we likely wouldn’t share our mentee’s cultural background. But our outrage over the poor performance of NY City High School, our strong belief in the importance of education and SSP’s fantastic track record energized us to take the leap.   

Big Brothers Big Sistersmay be the best known national youth mentoring program.  At the same time, there are many mentoring programs targeted to specific aims which may be more appealing to you, especially if you are considering mentoring for the first time.  SSP and iMentor are both focused on helping at-risk students graduate and go onto college and productive careers. It is all about providing a wider sense of the world and the options education can afford.  iMentor heavily utilizes technology such as email to complement face-to-face interaction, to better meet the needs of busy professional mentors.  According to the org: “Of iMentor mentors, 70% have never mentored before, 52% do not participate in any other volunteer opportunity outside of iMentor, and 97% work in professional fields.”   

If the organizations in this post don’t make sense for you, try a simple google search for “Youth mentoring [insert your city or state here]” — you’ll likely find organizations for mentoring youth of different ages, specifically for school or  for career exposure or even for areas such as the arts.

Spending time with K and her friends has shown us just how limited many children’s experiences are, even when they live in a city filled with learning opportunities — and how directly and severely that experience impacts academic performance regardless of IQ.  It has also proven to us that this limited — or in some cases just different — frame of reference does not mean the child’s parents don’t care or aren’t involved. And it has shown us that if we have any hope of connecting with our own 7- and 3-year-olds when they are teenagers, we better keep mentoring; it is just too easy to forget what it’s really like to be one of those amazing and mysterious high schoolers. So, here’s hoping 2009-10 is our best junior year ever!

Sweet Summertime Projects

Hi everyone, I’m happy to say our Real-World Super Heroes class will be offered again this fall. We are currently working on our juicy class line-up, pulling some favorites from last year as well as growing a few new ones. 

In the meantime, how do your kids keep flexing their Real-World Super Hero muscles?

Here are a few sweet summertime ideas:

1. Open for Business: The Lemonade -Cookie-Art Sale Stand - Kids love ths tried and true favorite, with a charity twist. Let your kids figure out what they want to sell depending on what they like to do. For some that’s baking.  But we’ve also known kids who have sold their own paintings, hand-made beaded jewelry or braided braclets. Help your kids identify cause to benefit and how much they will donate; some may want to give 100% of proceeds to philanthropy and some may want to keep some of the fruits of their labor –that’s ok too. If you can, try to find a local organization or office where the kids can hand over their money in person.  We have some young friends who did a Lemonade Stand while on vacation in Cape Cod and delivered their check to the International Fund for Animal Welfare  located just down the street in Yarmouth, MA.

2. Hear Me Roar: Visit Your Local Zoo.  We took a family trip to the Bronx Zoo yesterday and without any foresight, it ended up including a lesson about helping animals. Most zoos share lots of information about conservation efforts, and to be honest ,we usually zip right past this info. But this time we really checked out the Poacher Truck station in the Tiger Mountain exhibit and talked about what actions are being taken to protect these big cats. Then I let my son put some coins into one of those spiraling collection boxes on our way out.  Without prompting, he explained to his younger sibling that the money goes “to the people who are helping protect the animals.”  I could tell he was proud to contribute.

3. The Cupcake Fairies: Generate Instant Smiles. One of our favorite Real-World Super Heroes classes is called “Random Acts of Kindess.”  The best part of random acts of kindness is that because they are unexpected, they often generates wonderful immediate responses.  This immediate feedback loop can become somewhat addictive. The more fun you have with this, the more surprised and pleased your recipients are likely to be. Recently, my kids and I baked some cupcakes and declared ourselves the Cupcake Fairies. I gave my son and his cousin each a light-up wand (similar ones can be found here). We went out after dinner (because doing anything in the dark makes it more fun), knocked on doors of neighboring friends and handed out the brightly decorated treats. It was a big success and perhaps we’ve even started a new tradition in the neighborhood.  I’m personally hoping the Peanut Brittle Pirates or the Brownie Brigade will come knocking sometime soon.

More than ever, I embrace the unstructured time summertime brings. The projects mentioned here provide fun ways for your kids to flex their Super Hero muscles while they play outside, visit with family and stay up late. So enjoy!

The Making of a Lemon-aid Stand

In last Thursday’s “Real-World Super Heroes” class, we reinforced the idea that kids absolutely have the power to make a big difference. We shared some amazing real-life examples. Such as: Ryan Hreljac was in the first grade when he learned in class that people were dying because they didn’t have clean water to drink. He decided to do chores to raise $70 and build a well for a Ugandan village. Today, 10 years later, Ryan’s Well Foundation has contributed more than 480 wells in 16 countries serving more than 600,000 people.  Similarly, Janine Licare was 9 when she and her friend starting selling art to raise money for the rain forest, eventually creating Kids Saving the Rainforest. 

The key message: you don’t have to think big from the start, you just have to get started. This week our young Heroes got started on part 1 of a 2-part session on running a Lemonade Stand. Our group decided our Stand will sell lemonade and cookies, as well as tattoos. We discussed how to advertise our event – signs!  And how to help customers pass on the word – stickers! We also talked about prices, which we are 90% agreed on, but left ourselves a little wiggle room. Our heroes then got to work making cookies, signs and stickers.

The Real-World Super Heroes Lemonade Stand will be raising money for another group of neighborhood heroes: our firefighters. Our young Heroes will have the opportunity to present the money they raise to the brave members of the Firehouse at 145 W. 100^th Street. The firefighters will provide the money to the Burn Center, which helps injured firefighters and civilians, and will thank us with a firehouse tour.

On May 28, with the weather suitably warm, we will take the cookies out of the freezer, mix up our lemonade and open for business. One day only. $1 for a drink and a cookie.  One more way to be a Super Hero.

9:58 this morning: Bloomin’ Earth. Tomorrow: Celebrate.

Central Park 9:58am Apr 24

 I snapped this photo while running around the reservoir in Central Park today. As T.S. Eliot wrote,”April is the cruelest month.”  Any sunny day we’ve had has been followed by five gloomy ones. You expectantly pack away winter gear, and then Mother Nature just rains and rains on your parade.

Until now. At least for now. Perfectly timed with Earth Day, our lovely planet (or at least our small patch of it) seems to have burst out into the sunshine if full floral regalia.  So, celebrate with her.

Check out your local listings for special Earth Day events (or search by location here). If you are in NYC, check out the list at the end of this blog.

Another great way to celebrate Earth Day this week — and every week — is to shop at your local farmers’ market. You already know shoppinglocal food growers and is eco-friendly AND yummy, but consider this: today in the US, we consumer less than 1% of the vegetable varieties than we did a century ago.  This fact courtesy of my current read: Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver. It turns out that consuming local varieties of food is good for biodiversity, your health and happily, your tastebuds. 

As I write this, my husband and daughter are shopping the Friday farmers’ market at W. 97th and Columbus.  If you don’t know where to go, it’s easy to look up location and days/hours of a market near you at the NY State Farmers’ Markets site or, for national links, localharvest.org.  Happy Earth Day Eats and please share some seasonal recipes!

And, now for some select Earth Day Happenings in NYC: 

Earth Day in Central Park

DATE: April 26, 2009 from 12 – 4 pm

LOCATION: At the Bandshell just south of the 72^nd St. transverse,

RAIN OR SHINE

WHAT:  Live entertainment, including a puppet show, singing and African dancing; mini-landscape planting and container decorating, tree climbing, flower planting, wildlife corridor games and composting demos.  Greenmarket vendors.

 

Earth Expo at the Bronx Zoo

DATE: April 25 – 26, 2009 from 11am – 4pm

LOCATION: Bronx Zoo

WHAT: Various activities and events including a “Recycled Animal Kingdom,”  (one-of-a-kind animal sculptures created entirely from found objects), arts and crafts including making a souvenir out of recycled materials and helping with an Earth Day mural, yoga sessions for the whole family, and a Human Footprint Exhibit showing our impact on the planet.  The Expo will showcase organizations and products which can help you and your family live “greener”. See website (www.bronxzoo.com) for specific times and locations within the zoo.

 

Earth Fair 2009

DATE: April 24- 25, 2009

LOCATION: Grand Central Station

                        Inside at Vanderbilt Hall

                        Outside at Vanderbilt Ave. at 42^nd Street

WHAT:  A variety of events and activities celebrating Earth Day, including live bands, kids activities, face painting, yoga, & environmental action opportunities.