Last year my big kid set a BIG goal. Take a trip to Poland with Global Volunteers (https://globalvolunteers.org) and teach English to Ukrainian refugee children. While the actual teaching of these kids was a big task in and of itself, the big goal was that he needed to raise enough money to cover his program fees and his flights, about $5,000 total. He reached out to friends and family, local groups such as Rotary and the Lions Club with direct asks. He presented materials about what he would be doing, who he would be supporting and his goals. He also participated in a local student craft fair raising a fair bit of change from his water-colored pictures of sunflowers, to paper mache boats. After many months of hard work, he was successful in his goal and last summer went and taught English to a group of Ukrainian children in Poland. 

He LOVED it. He loved working with the students, teaching English and making connections with the mayor of the small town who was hosting the students as well as the mayor from the town the children were from. In fact, he has kept in touch with them. Hearing of their continued suffering and heartbreak has spurred him to wanting to help once again but in an even bigger way. His new goal is to start his own nonprofit which would not only support the small towns in Ukraine of the students he met, but could also eventually help other communities in need as his nonprofit grows. He’s met with a friends mom who helped build what has become a very successful nonprofit, Beyond Type 1 (https://beyondtype1.org) and conducted an informational interview. He has researched the steps needed to set up a nonprofit and is currently brainstorming a name, mission statement etc.

His next step will be forming a board and registering his nonprofit. This comes with a hefty price tag! So once again the big kid is working on a fundraising goal. He is signed up once again for the student craft fair with his goal being to earn enough to cover all his fees of starting his nonprofit. After some brainstorming and some looking around Pinterest for inspiration, he and I have started working on some art for the art fair. To keep his costs as low as possible we’ve been raiding the recycling bin for some recycled projects. Even after many paper mache projects over the years, I still find it truly amazing how a little cardboard, newspaper, flour and imagination can churn out something so cool!