HOW TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE

With the arrival of summer, you may have more free time than you know what to do with. A good way to spend the summer (and any time!) is to help someone else. Take a look at how these Miss O Club-bers have utilized their talents to help others. Write in and share your story!

Ways to Help People
By: Breanna, 9 (aka breannaROCKS)
Do you want to help others but don’t know how to? Helping people makes you feel really good about yourself, and I have some ideas about how to help others:

1. Go to www.freerice.com. It’s an educational thing, where there’s a word and four definitions. If you get the definition right, you’ve just donated 20 grains of rice. Pretty cool, huh?
2. Find a food or book drive and donate something!
3. Go to your local charity or shelter and give them an old stuffed animal.
4. When you go to check-out counter at the store and see a huge bottle with a charity sign on the front, donate at least one dollar.

Volunteering
By: Bria, 13 (aka pizzalover1)
Want a feeling of satisfaction and pride, and knowing that you’ve helped make a difference? Well there’s a fairly simple way to do that. Volunteer! There are lots of different ways to volunteer. If you love animals, help out at a local animal shelter. Do you like people? You can visit nursing homes. People there would LOVE a visit from someone like you. At places like animal shelters, though, they sometimes say you have to be a certain age to help. But normally they will let you help if you have an adult with you, like a mom or dad. Just think about what kind of things you love, and you’ll find some way to volunteer.

Helping Veterans
By: Maria, 11 (aka cutewildchild)
My school is doing a program right now to help soldiers in the army. We are all writing postcards and thank-you notes, and we are giving food as well. Our school started this on Veteran’s day, and so far it is a success. Some of the teams in our school chose not to contribute, but our team gladly accepted the challenge! We write greetings and send snack food to the soldiers. It hurts to think of them away from their family, so we are trying to be like one ourselves with acts of kindness! Never be afraid to write and help anyone who is in need of cheer!

Donating Effect
By: Jade, 11 (aka jadestonegreen)
At the end of every year I donate about R100 ($10+) of my yearly savings to the Children’s Home in the suburb in which I live in. My school has a recycling project where the children bring paper and cardboard that the school then sends it to a recycling company that in return gives them money which the school then donates to the home. The way I got inspired to donate was because of a newspaper article my Mom read to me one day after school. The article was about a boy that donated his whole pocket money of R60 to a charity. This inspired me to donate, I hope this article will inspire you to too.