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Editor’s Note: KIDS Can Make A Difference, a program of WHY (World Hunger Year) is celebrating its tenth anniversary. The following article appeared in the Fall 2004 edition of the KIDS Can Make a Difference newsletter and is included in Circle! with permission. For more information or to make a donation, visit www.kidscanmakeadifference.org

Hey Kids, You Can Make A Difference...

by Bill Ayres

Congratulations on ten years of believing Kids Can Make A Difference and helping tens of thousands of kids to do just that, in so many ways.

This is an age in which millions of us have lost hope in our system: our political structure, big business, schools, churches and temples, the media and often the very families that give us life and nurture. What are the choices for young people growing up in our society? They can be seduced by the empty, ever pulsating promises of media for happiness through things: buy things, new things, more and more things. They can enter the fast track to success and lose their souls to the fake gods of power, prestige, and possessions. They can become so dismayed and disenchanted that they fall into one or more debilitating addictions that slowly drain the life and hope out of both body and spirit, or they can decide to make a difference. With the right support and inspiration it can happen. It does happen for millions of young people every year.

If you choose to make a difference, here are some of the things that will happen:

You will feel a sense of satisfaction that you helped someone.
You will feel better about yourself.
Your self-esteem will grow.
You will get out of yourself a bit and not be so preoccupied with the small problems of your life that you have made bigger than they really are.
You will be given relief from some of the truly big problems you have and perhaps a new perspective on them.
You will meet some of the finest people on earth. People that you probably would not have met otherwise. You will feel a sense of community, of belonging, perhaps for the first time.
You may very well meet someone who will become a good friend or a mentor and have a big influence on your life.
You will learn compassion. That is the ability to suffer with one person or a whole group of people where you can't solve their problems but you can be there with them and for them.
You will often be frustrated by injustice and your failure to help everyone who is in need.
This may lead you beyond individual acts of kindness to working or volunteering with an organization that is dedicated to the service of people and to changing the system.
If you choose this route you will feel empowered by the community and you will be able to utilize your passion, you creativity, energy, imagination, and wisdom, your total person for a cause, something beyond yourself. You may not succeed in all you set out to do. In fact, you will often fail.
You will make mistakes, but you will know that you have made a difference.

How do I know this to be true? It has been my life for 45 years, 30 of them with WHY (World Hunger Year). As a kid I wanted to make a difference with my life. Fortunately, I met another kid, Harry Chapin the singer and co-founder of WHY with the same dream and over the years I have met dozens more dreamers. We have made a difference in the lives of millions of people, but we are not finished yet. The best is yet to come. Imagine that. You can make a difference.

Here are a few ways you can make a difference for hungry people.

Learn more about world hunger as well as hunger and poverty right here in the USA. Our website www.worldhungeryear.org and the Kids Can Make A Difference curriculum "Finding Solutions To Hunger."
Learn about hunger in your community and how you can help by contacting your church or temple or a local non-profit service organization.
Take part in a food drive.
Work in a food pantry or a soup kitchen.
Support national and state legislation to reduce hunger and poverty such as raising the minimum wage so that working people can feed their families and childcare programs and after school programs that allow parents, especially single parents, to go to work knowing that their children are in good care.
Call or write your legislators about these issues. Remember, they receive very little mail so your communication makes a difference.
Make a donation to Kids Can Make A Difference.
Contact Oxfam or Bread For The World to learn more about hunger throughout the world and how you can help.

Make sure your own diet has more fruits, vegetables and whole grains and less sugar and salt.

Bill Ayres, A kid who wanted to make a difference, is Executive Director and Co-Founder of World Hunger Year (WHY). He may be contacted at bill@worldhungeryear.org

Watch for the Next Issue of Circle! on March 7