YOUNG PEOPLE GRATEFUL FOR CHANCE TO HELP OTHERS

A 1997 study by Princeton Survey Research found that 73 percent of America's 60 million young people (ages 15 to 29) believe they can make a difference in their communities by volunteering.

Four local kids involved in the humanitarian group Compassion 4 Kids are making a difference not only in their communities, but also around the continent.

Compassion 4 Kids was founded last year by Julie Livingston, a Lawrence mother. Its purpose is to "empower committed volunteers to share compassion and resources with underserved children." Often people want to help, but they do not know how to, she explained. C4K gives people that outlet.

C4K has scores of adults and youth working together with organizations such as orphanages and schools to provide resources and opportunities for children in need. Recently, Y-Press interviewed four members: Jason Niederhauser, 17; Mary Welch, 11; Taylor Ostrom, 10; and Nick Livingston (Julie Livingston's son), 10. All have gone on a service trip with C4K.

The group focuses on four areas: Central Indiana, the Blackfeet Indian Reservation in Montana, the Navajo Reservation in New Mexico, and Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, where volunteers traveled in 2003 and 2004.

When most people think of Puerto Vallarta, they don't envision the poverty that many children there endure. The town is known for tourism, but Compassion 4 Kids focused on people in need.

"Maybe a mile away from that on the other side of town, there's a whole different world, and that's where all the orphanages (are) and people living in the dump," said Jason.

"The main reason Compassion 4 Kids goes to these places isn't really to go sightseeing," he added. "We were going to day-cares and kindergartens."

Before each trip, C4K collects supplies such as hygiene items, medicines and school supplies to donate to the communities. Once there, the group helps however it can. In Puerto Vallarta, for example, the volunteers helped build furniture for an orphanage and for a remote school destroyed by Hurricane Kenna in 2002.

Mission trips also allow members to get to know local children. For example, C4K always takes the local children on a field trip to a place they have never been, such as the beach, a museum or a restaurant. For them, such places are exciting and educational, since they usually leave the orphanage only to walk to school and back.

"They are real happy to see us because they know that when we come, they'll get to have lunch and we'll take a bunch of the kids on field trips," said Taylor.

The volunteers said almost all their time in Puerto Vallarta is spent with the children there. Many were surprised at how grateful the Puerto Vallarta children are. "I didn't know they'd be so friendly," Mary said. "Everybody was so nice there."

Jason agreed. "It made me a lot more willing to give my time and energy to them just because they were so grateful for it."

For volunteers who have been on several trips, seeing familiar faces is another reward of service trips. "It's just a really great experience because we get to see a bunch of kids we've already seen," Taylor said.

These youth also volunteer with C4K's efforts at home. One local project teamed up students in the English as a Second Language program at Craig Middle School with F.C. Pride, a competitive travel soccer club in Lawrence Township. Soccer officials volunteered to coach the newly created team, and Indiana Youth Soccer Association in Lawrence provided the equipment.

Other Central Indiana projects include cleaning the playground at a child development center, holding arts and crafts classes at a homeless shelter, and setting up a family support pantry for Lawrence Township students to provide food, school supplies and other things to families selected by school-district social workers.

The youth are pleased with the impact their service work has had, but they find they have benefited as well. Everyone agreed the projects have made them more grateful and willing to help.

"I look at other people, like the rich and famous, and be like 'I want that' or whatever," Jason said. "When I go to help these people, it's like everything that we take for granted, they don't really have, or they have very little of it. And so it's like any time I can get outside of myself and help somebody else, it always makes me feel better because I'm not constantly looking for what I don't have, but just being more grateful for what I do have."

Taylor had a similar experience. "There was this little girl, and she picked up some underwear, and she was like, 'Underwear!' They were way too big for her, but she loved them. It was kind of funny. And so now I am much more grateful, and I don't just waste stuff, like I kind of did before," she said.

Besides its local projects, Compassion 4 Kids will return to Puerto Vallarta in November. In July, it will travel for the first time to New Mexico to help families on the Navajo Reservation. On that trip, 40 volunteers will help teach reading, do light construction on Navajo homes and provide aid to individual families who are leaving the reservation in search of jobs and a better life for their children.

Though the Navajo trip is full, there are still spots open for the Mexico trip. Volunteers pay all of their own expenses. The group has prepared a list of school, art and hygiene supplies, sports equipment and construction tools that the mission needs.

The youth have big plans for C4K.

Taylor said, "I think in 10 years, Compassion 4 Kids probably will have expanded and that there will be more places to go, and it will be slowly but surely changing the rest of the world, making it a better place."

With each trip, C4K makes a little more progress, Nick said. "I feel just like I've helped another life."

REPORTER: Katie McDowell, 11.

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Y-Press is a nonprofit news organization with offices in The Indianapolis Star building. Stories are researched, reported and written by teams of young people ages 10 to 18. For more information, call (317) 444-2010 or send an e-mail to ypress@in.net.

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