Sarah Stone, Communications Director
This spring, I’ve enjoyed taking a small step into the education field, spending a little time in the classroom with my colleagues and members of our Youth Philanthropy Committee to teach Putnam County elementary students about philanthropy through a new pilot program, Kids Make Change.
Philanthropy can be a challenging concept for children to grasp and can even be difficult to pronounce. We’ve had fun during Kids Make Change lessons, learning how to say the word, defining it in a way that makes sense to a first grader, and starting conversations about how children can be philanthropists in their community.
Through Kids Make Change, participating classrooms learn how to use their time, talent and treasure to support others in need. We challenged those classrooms, one in each county school district, to collect coins to benefit the Youth Philanthropy Endowment and its grantmaking efforts to support youth-led charitable projects throughout Putnam County.
As with any pilot program, we weren’t quite sure what to expect from the students, especially when trying to introduce a new concept so close to spring break! As always, the kids showed us just how much potential they have to make the world a better place.
Collectively, the four pilot classrooms raised over $1,100!
To celebrate their amazing philanthropic work, the Community Foundation matched each classroom’s donations and doubled their impact, donating a total of $2,292.90 to the Youth Philanthropy Endowment!
We are so proud that the Kids Make Change program was so successful in its first year and hope to launch the program county-wide in the 2023-2024 school year.
