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The Littlest Volunteers
Written By Jeff Wagenheim

The winners of our first annual contest.

What do you wish for your child's future? The parents we talk to aren't fixated on big-time professional or social success. What's most important is raising a good citizen of the world. So how do you teach a child to be a caring member of the community? Nature offers a head start: Kids want to help. This may be less a display of compassion than a declaration of independence — "I do it!" — but it sends them in the right direction.

It was in this spirit that we invited readers to enter our Littlest Volunteers contest and tell us how their children have helped others. Now we're happy to announce that with help from the nonprofit Points of Light Foundation, we've chosen 13 winning families. Three Grand Prize winners will get a $5,000 award from The Walt Disney Company for their chosen school or charity; 10 First Prize winners will receive $1,000 to donate. Read on for some success stories, surprises, and maybe a little inspiration. It could be your family next year.

Find out how to enter the 2008 Littlest Volunteers contest.

Grand Prize Winners

First Prize Winners

Grand Prize

Pet Project
Kate, Evan, and Dylan Houston, ages 8, 5, and 4
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma

The soundtrack to Saturday morning in the Houston household used to be the "boing!" and "splat!" and the canned laughter of cartoons. But these days the sounds filling the house are barks, splashes, and live laughter coming from the bathroom, where Kate, Evan, and Dylan are sudsing up the dogs.

Their mom, Aimee, is a certified therapy-dog handler, and for two years she's been part of a group called Petting Paws, which pays weekly visits to hospitals and nursing homes. When the Petting Paws arrive, residents flock to see obedience demonstrations and not-so-stupid pet tricks. "Pearl is great at the stop, drop, and roll," Aimee says of her Great Pyrenees mix. "She even takes a bow afterward." But the visitors who fetch the most attention are Aimee's children.

Evan and Dylan steady the dogs' tunnels and jumps during trick time; Kate works with a bichon of her own, Ellie, who, at 15 pounds, is just enough dog for an 8-year-old. But there's something Kate likes to hold on to even more than Ellie's leash. "I like holding the grandpas' and grandmas' hands," she says.

The feeling is mutual. Maybe because she's the oldest, Kate gets a constant stream of questions — "What's your name?" "How old are you?" — and these days, she actually answers them. "When I first started bringing her, Kate was pretty shy," Aimee says. "She just stood back and watched, and if anyone talked to her, she'd hide behind my leg. But now she'll go over and sit with the older people when they take an interest in her." The residents will talk and talk about when they were younger. Kate triggers a flood of memories.

These visits also bring up memories for their mom. When Aimee was a kid, her mother got her to join a clown troupe that visited nursing homes and hospital wards. "I was a shy girl, almost as much as Kate, and being in costume allowed me to take on a whole different character," she says. "I loved all the attention I got from the elderly people."

Volunteering has not only brought the kids out but drawn them in too, giving them patience Aimee hadn't seen before. "They now understand that there are wonderful people there, with wonderful stories," she says. "The kids, especially Kate, are much better at just sitting and listening."

Don't tell the experts who say kids are all about "me" and "mine," but the Houstons seem to have gotten into the habit of giving: For her birthday party this year, Kate asked that guests bring a gift not for her, but for local underprivileged children.

Photo: Evan, Aimee, and Dylan

Next page: Grand Prize winners Nathaniel and Madelyn Dohm

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Grand Prize

Special Delivery
Nathaniel and Madelyn Dohm, ages 4 and 3
Geneva, Illinois

Every other month, Nathaniel Dohm is at the grocery store with a mission. His mom already has a long list of food and household things to buy for the family they'll be visiting, but she needs her consultant and his little sister to pick out the right kinds of cereal and snacks, the kinds kids like (pudding, fruit leather). Then the Dohms — parents Amy and Stephen, Nathaniel, and Madelyn — pack the groceries into the trunk and head out.

For the past two years, the family's been visiting a woman we'll call Stella, who lives in nearby Aurora with her daughter and four grandchildren. Stella asked that her real name not be used because she has AIDS, and she's "not sure how people around here would react to that." The families were matched by the church organization Love in Action when the Dohms decided they wanted to do more than write checks for good causes.

When they learned they'd be visiting a woman with AIDS, "I was 99 percent okay with it, but I felt this tiny fear," Amy says. "When you're a mom and you're getting your kids involved ..." She knows you don't contract HIV just by being in somebody's home or by touching them, but still, there was this momentary pause — "all the time it takes for even well-intentioned people to pull away," she says. "Which is why people with AIDS are so isolated, so alone. We didn't want to add to that."

"The first time they came," Stella says, "I thought they would just drop off some bags of food and go about their business. But they came in, they sat, and we talked."

That is, the adults talked. Nathaniel and Madelyn heard a familiar theme song from upstairs, and soon they were sitting in front of the TV with Stella's grandchildren. Common ground holds sway with the kids more than differences, and the Dohms have become like family to Stella. "Madelyn comes in, pulls off her shoes, and is right at home," she says. "Nathaniel gives me a hug and runs upstairs to play. They act like they're my own children."

"The kids always put a smile on [Stella's] face, and I get the feeling she doesn't smile an awful lot," Amy says. "But it's not a one-way thing — my children love the attention and get an extremely valuable lesson."

"We wanted to start this when they're young," Stephen says. "This way, as they grow, it becomes part of their DNA. We want our kids to see that in our family we've always done this, and it's what we should always do."

Photo: Madelyn's on shopping-cart duty.

Next page: Grand Prize winner Gabriella Alvarez

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Grand Prize

Operation Stinky Baby
Gabriella Alvarez, age 6
Colbert, Washington

The corn fritters were tasty, made right there at the roadside stand, and the Alvarez family kept coming back. This trip to Honduras was an adventure for then 4-year-old Gabriella; she and her mom were visiting her dad, who was on a nine-month diplomatic assignment at the U.S. embassy in Tegucigalpa. During every fritter stop, Rob and Suzanne would chat with the woman who ran the stand with some help from her daughter, who was the same age as Gabriella. The girls didn't share a word.

Back home weeks later, looking at pictures from the trip, all Gabriella wanted to talk about was the girl at the corn fritter stand. She paused at a shot of the girl with a torn, barely stuffed animal and said, "She looks sad. Let's send her Izzy's stuffed animals."

"I don't think your little sister would like that," Suzanne said. "What else can you think of sending?" Thus was born Operation Fluffy. Gabriella wanted to call her project Operation Stinky Baby, in honor of her most beloved stuffed animal, but her mom suggested she come up with a name the community could get behind.

It started with Gabriella and her mom going to yard sales to buy stuffed animals to send to Honduras. "With the enthusiasm of a 6-year-old," Suzanne says, "Gabby got others involved." The homeowners would get up from their lawn chairs to search for more animals. Friends and neighbors gave them up too, and the fire department contributed from the stockpile it takes out on calls. Suzanne had thought they'd collect maybe 25 animals, but three months later she and Gabriella were boxing up more than 300.

After Rob got home from his assignment in Honduras, he showed Gabriella pictures from the day he gave the stuffed animals to the girl at the corn fritter stand and dozens of other kids. Gabriella pointed to bears or bunnies or doggies she remembered, now having the stuffng hugged out of them by their new owners. Suzanne says "she really got" the idea that if you have more than you need, you share: When Rob and Suzanne decided to adopt another child from China, where they adopted all three of their daughters, Suzanne asked Gabriella what she thought. "Of course we should," she said. "We have enough chairs."

Photo: Gabriella with her own stuffed animal

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