Show 28: Kids & Volunteering

IN-STUDIO GUESTS: Volunteering can empower children and the whole family, and this week on Kids These Days! we're celebrating lending a hand, giving back and making a difference!

On today's show we’ll learn about Kids Day and the group that puts it on, Anchorage’s Promise, and we’ll hear about ways that young people volunteer and engage in our world to help make it a better place.

In the studio with host Shana Sheehy are Debbie Bogart, the Executive Director of Anchorage’s Promise, a collaborative organization that helps local partners deliver services for young people; Heather Jack, the founder of The Volunteer Family, a nonprofit organization that helps families find volunteer opportunities, and of Future Philanthropists, which teaches youth about nonprofits and entrusts them to give away real money to those organizations; Nyla Riley, a local teen who serves on the Anchorage's Promise Youth Advisory Board and is busy organizing the Teen City Center Stage area at Kids Day.

DID YOU KNOW? It's National Volunteer Week! Check out our list of 6 Volunteering Websites to Inspire the Whole Family and don't miss the FREE Kids Day event at the Denaina Center this Satuday, April 16 from 10am to 4pm where 70 youth-serving organizations will gather to present interactive, fun activities meant especially for children! Come visit us at the Kids These Days! booth where you can play dress up and take your photo!

FEATURED STORIES:

• Contributor Jessica Cochran introduces us to Sam Allred, a local boy who founded his own charity called Kindness for Kids - he makes pillows to comfort children suffering from chronic illness. Learn more about this awesome kid and donate to his project.

• Power of One: Deacon Wassillie Gust (or "Uppa" (Grandfather) Wally) is in his second year as a RuralCAP BIRCH Americorps volunteer in New Stuyahok where he gives 40-hours of his time each week to help improve his community by energizing the local youth to take positive action. Full story & photos here!

• The Chugach School District which includes the areas of Whittier, Tatitlek and Chenaga Bay as well as a large extension school service throughout Alaska makes service-learning a graduation requirement for its students. Head teacher at the Whittier Community School, Stephanie Burgoon, shares how their kids from K-12 are making a difference. Full story & photos here!

• Teen reporter Aviva Hirsch brings another of her excellent and thoughtful dispatches from the halls of West Anchorage High School. This time teens talk about where they volunteer and why they do it.