The Greatest Gift: Teaching Kids To Give
As the holiday season brings the spirit of giving to the fore, many San Diego families have made a tradition of sharing their wealth, time, and energy with those in need. With the lingering effects of the disastrous October fires, there also remains the afterglow of generosity and common goodwill with which San Diegans met the needs of their displaced neighbors.

Kids and young adults were most deeply affected by both giving and receiving goods and assistance. Such touchstone moments can build character and leadership skills, and lay the foundation for a life of giving and community stewardship. Best of all, parents no longer have to be Albert Schweitzer or J. Paul Getty to get their kids involved in charitable activities that will reward them right away. In his blog, Fox6’s Family Matters resident therapist Keith Kanner says, "When volunteering is introduced at an early age, the importance of giving, sharing, and feeling empathy becomes internalized into the young child’s conscience. This early influence then becomes crystallized into their personalities and ideals for the future."

It was the 2003 Cedar Fire that awakened the activist in then-14-year-old-Alexis Tarbet of Rancho Santa Fe. The Tarbet family always made charitable giving and work a priority, but as for how she took the cause and ran with it, her father Ted takes none of the credit, and you can hear more than a little awe in his voice as he describes how his daughter took it upon herself to turn an idea into a crusade. "We can take no credit for any of that. It just came from her heart. It was something unique that she saw a need for, and I think that’s characterized her philanthropy and service work, since then."

After retiring in 2000, Ted worked actively with local philanthropy group San Diego Social Venture Partners to give back to the community. When a relief mission and sit-down lunch with refugees of the Cedar Fire drove home the pain of Julian residents, Alexis was inspired to take the third of her allowance reserved for charitable causes, and add to it by organizing a fundraiser to buy her homeless peers the stuff she knew they needed most, to get back to a normal life. "She came back from her room with a flyer to help these teenage kids," Ted says, adding, "I was totally shocked." Thanks to Alexis and those she inspired, 104 Julian students each received a $275 gift certificate from Target and Sears stores, totaling $29,000. Modestly playing down her own role in a statement after the event, Alexis clearly enjoyed doing good for its own sake. "The day went so well and everyone who made a donation did an amazing thing. These kids needed to know people cared about them."

But Alexis didn’t launch her bold project alone. One of her partners, the San Diego Foundation, acts as a broker to individual, family, and organized donors eager to maximize the local impact of their charitable dollars. Senior VP of marketing Sara Wilensky Napoli explains how prominent donor families "pass on the philanthropic gene."

She suggests families make their heirs fund advisors. Entrusting them with the goals of the funding insures that they’ll reward the family’s confidence by taking the ventures to heart. But, as in the case of Alexis, Napoli agrees that quite often, all it takes to awaken a giving spirit "is just being able to walk in the other person’s shoes."

The San Diego Foundation also runs a nonprofit office in the Junior Achievement BizTown project. As part of the kid-driven model economy, fifth graders donate part of their pretend paychecks to support the environment, animal welfare, the arts, or education, but they also get to play at running a nonprofit office, and try raising funds from their wage-earning peers.

While sharing wealth goes a long way, kids get the most reward — and do the most good — when they lend their hands and minds to assisting adults, and Kids Korps USA is ready, willing, and eager to put them to work. "Our whole philosophy is volunteering made easy," says Kids Korps CEO and co-founder Joani Wafer. Geared to fit the schedules of working parents as well as the skill levels of kids ages 5 to 18, Kids Korps projects are popular family outings — "we’re usually totally booked on every single project, every weekend. So, there’s definitely a demand."

Each week, the Kids Korps calendar features 30 or more activities lasting from one to five hours a day, for which families may sign up. Younger kids can write letters to firefighters, help with food drives, and assist in painting over graffiti — jobs that might seem like punishment to some kids, but which youngsters can integrate with their own love of play and immediate results. Wafer’s own kids got involved at age five, and she credits that early start for their success in college today. "At age five, they go to school to start their education, so why not also begin their character education?"

Partnered with over 250 local groups, from Helen Woodward Animal Center and Boys & Girls Clubs of San Diego to St. Vincent de Paul and Bread Of Life, Kids Korps covers the spectrum of good works, and introduces kids to volunteering with key appeals to their psychology. "At a young age, they might not know exactly," says Kids Korps coordinator Brian Turk, "but if they want to work with the elderly, or animals, or the environment, we’ve got something for everybody." Nurturing kids’ native concerns secures their interest, while seeing the real good they can do keeps them coming back. "The key to expanding their desire to give and be a good citizen is that it’s a hands-on experience, that they can see tangible results right away."

The Kids Korps mission is shared by 65 chapters organized in homes and schools throughout San Diego County (with hundreds more throughout the country), which organize and set up their own projects. Earl Warren Middle School’s group recently ran food drives for Camp Pendleton Marines, while the Sage Canyon and Creekside chapters have put together hundreds of outfits for victims of the Witch Fire. One of the most popular Kids Korps projects whisks young idealists down to Tijuana and Ensenada to build houses.

"We’re very into prepping people for the event, and then reflecting after the event," says Turk. Parents and other adult volunteers receive training to help kids see the good they can do. "Before an event, there’ll be a short meeting on the goal, and afterwards, they reflect on how it went, and how they felt."

As civic-minded kids grow up, they can stay engaged with greater challenges — and more freedom — to take their will to help in bold new directions. Teen Korps chapters devise their own projects with an all-teen advisory board of veteran super-volunteers. Armed with training from free leadership seminars, Teen Korps chapter leaders proactively identify problems they see in communities, and take the initiative to fix them.

With a toy drive, soup kitchens, and hosts of other services, Kids Korps is currently reaching out to those facing a tough Christmas, but they really hope to rally the seasonal Samaritans to the cause all year round. "People tend to be very generous over the holidays," Turk adds, "so our aim is to use that momentum, and the experiences they’ll have over the next six weeks, to keep them volunteering on a regular basis. Oftentimes, all it takes is one great experience, and they want to volunteer again and again."

The benefits of giving have continued to enrich the Tarbet family, in some ways nobody could’ve guessed. Alexis is applying to colleges while carrying on charity work with groups such as Invisible Children, and recently beat out her dad for a $25,000 home-rebuilding grant from Rescue Task Force. He says Alexis always had an altruistic streak, but the greatest influence on her was simply watching her parents. "It’s really about setting an example," he says. "You can get a lot further by living how you want them to live, than to preach something you don’t practice." Alexis herself offered this advice to kids in 2003: "Get involved in issues that are close to your heart, then give it all your effort. The smiles you see as a result make it all worthwhile." (www.sdfoundation.org, www.kidskorps.org) — Cody Goodfellow