December 14, 2000 | Read Time: 2 minutes
Catch the Spirit: Teen Volunteers Tell How They Made a Difference
by Susan K. Perry
Young people who volunteer often help themselves in the process of helping others, writes the author of this collection that profiles 20 teenagers’ volunteer efforts.
As Yanick Dalhouse, a teenager who created the Empty Bowls Project to fight hunger in Moorhead, Minn., explains, no amount of money could buy the feelings she got by giving food to the people in her community who desperately needed it. “To be able to have the opportunity to do that,” she says, “was just wonderful.”
Susan K. Perry, a social psychologist and writer based in Los Angeles, explains that like most adult volunteers, the teens she has studied volunteer because it makes them feel good and because it is “energizing and exciting” for them to serve people less fortunate than themselves. She insists that the 20 teenagers depicted in this book are “not necessarily more altruistic, more unselfish” than other teens. They are “otherwise perfectly typical teens,” who simply “saw a need, felt strongly, and did something to make a difference.”
The adolescents profiled in the book developed volunteer projects that cater to a variety of social needs. “From sick children who had no one to bring them a stuffed animal, to people who were going hungry, to youngsters who longed for ‘anything’ for a holiday gift, to orphaned baby birds that needed care,” Ms. Perry writes, these kids have “given countless hours to start and run projects that help others.”
She also discusses the difficult funding obstacles that many of the young volunteers had to overcome, and offers a list of Internet sites, books, and organizations that interested teens can contact to become involved with volunteering.
The 20 teenagers that Ms. Perry presents are all recent recipients of the Prudential Spirit of Community Award that is bestowed annually by the Prudential Insurance Company, in Newark, and the National Association of Secondary School Principals, in Reston, Va. More than 500 teens have received the award since it was established in 1995.
Publisher: Franklin Watts, Grolier Publishing, 90 Old Sherman Turnpike, Danbury, Conn. 06816; (203) 797-3500 or (800) 621-1115; customerservice@grolier.com; http://www.publishing.grolier.com; 191 pages; $14.95; I.S.B.N. 0-531-16499-3.
