local kids • GIVE BIG •
W h e n N o w a k h e rs e l f sought to volunteer with her own young children, she found a few opportunities as far flung as Arizona, a few chances at church (that filled up quickly), and online lists that rattled off “100 things you can do with your kid to give back.” A list of a hundred things she wasn’t doing “only played into my mother’s guilt,” she says, leaving her overwhelmed and frustrated. Today, through Giving Families, she offers monthly subscriptions with simple ideas, mailed to families, to help them do their own service projects, like making valentines to hand out at a local nursing home (with resources for how to find the right nursing home) or ways to participate in park cleanups without doing the larger volunteer events (which might be too labor-intensive and age-inappropriate for little ones). Nowak hopes through Giving Families, children will “really develop what they’re born with,” that tendency toward giving and helping. “You don’t have to teach them later, when they’re older,” Nowak says. “You just have to water seeds that are already there.”
ADOPT A BOOK Twins Hannah and Alexander Laman were 8 years old when they learned that many children regionally do not have books at home. In 2011 they founded Adopt a Book, and since that time they have collected and distributed more than 73,000 books. Hannah and Alexander are now 12 and their organization’s impact keeps growing. Adopt a Book currently has drop-off sites at local Mattress Firm stores and the Duke Energy Children’s Museum.
BAKE ME HOME Amy and Emma Bushman started volunteering, making breakfast with their mom at a homeless shelter, when they were just 4. As the girls grew older, they started making cookie mixes and gathering baking supplies to give to families as they left the shelter. Today, Bake Me Home has its own kitchen and office space in Mt. Washington. With the help of thousands of volunteers, Amy and Emma, now 14, also launched Picture Me Home, which coordinates family portraits for families in shelters, and Bake Me Back Home to deliver homemade cookies to servicemen and women overseas, as well as local veterans.
ELLIETHREADS Twins Ellie and Will Trubisky of Mariemont were born prematurely at Good Samaritan Hospital and spent their first 12 days in the NICU. During that time, their parents received two prayer blankets dropped off by local high school students. Those blankets remain precious mementos. Today, through Elliethreads, Ellie gives that same memento to others. Now 12, she makes, collects, and distributes prayer blankets to nursing homes, Good Samaritan’s NICU, and families she hears about through word of mouth. SHADES BY JESSIE Since February 2015, Jessica Loftus, age 4, has raised $1,700 for The Aubrey Rose Foundation by bedazzling and selling one-of-a-kind sunglasses. Jessica came up with the idea after her mother told her about the foundation and its work to financially support families with kids receiving care at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center. It takes Jessica between five and twenty minutes to decorate each pair (her mom, Jennifer, later secures it all with Gorilla Glue). The Loftus family is close with several families who have spent time at the hospital with a sick child, and Jennifer’s sister also spent time hospitalized in her early years. Of course, Jessica is still quite young, but she understands how sad it can feel to have to live (even for a time) at the hospital.“She knows that what she does with the shades helps these families,” Jennifer explains,“and she will tell you that it makes her happy that she can help.” — S . S .
THE BABYGUIDE
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