Kids and families can have a huge impact on the world. How? It starts small. Get involved in a single project. Maybe it means lugging in a few cans of food to your classroom. Maybe it means towel duty at a neighborhood car wash. Maybe it means picking up a few pieces of trash at a nearby park.

Whatever you choose to do, there’s no better time to start! And remember, big achievements are often the result of small steps taken in the right direction.

Communities Everywhere Are Struggling

This year has been hard on a lot of folks. The RECESSION—when local, state, national or even global economies take a downturn—hit many communities hard, and experts say the tough times will continue.

“This is unprecedented for us because we are just being overwhelmed with requests for help,” says Jack Parris, public relations manager for the Community Food Bank. “There are so many people who are out of work, and a lot of senior citizens have outlived their money. And we have people who work on commissions who aren’t making commissions anymore.” The number of people asking for help from the Food Bank is up 46 percent over a year ago.

Experts on the economy PREDICT the tough times will continue through next year, meaning even more people will find it hard to make ends meet.

Parris points out that people continue to give to the food bank. “Donations are doing well—they just haven’t kept up with the increased demand,” he says.

Last year, the food bank handed out 16.5 million pounds of food to 200,000 people in five Arizona counties. Many more people will need help in 2009.

Kids Serve Up Great Thanksgiving Street Banquet

Great music, great tables, great food and great people. A terrific holiday tradition in Tucson is the Great Thanksgiving Street Banquet, put on by the Gospel Rescue Mission. It’s all about people helping people. This time of year, officials close 28th Street in front of the men’s shelter. Then dozens of volunteers, many of them kids, set up row after row of banquet tables and put personal touches to each place setting.

All sorts of people in need come to this annual street feast—about 2,000 in all. A lively band starts playing. Someone from the mission says an opening prayer. Then the volunteers begin bringing out traditional Thanksgiving dinners followed by delicious pies for dessert. And the banquet is repeated until everyone is served.

It’s a Community Thing

The Gospel Rescue Mission is in the heart of a southside neighborhood. Karina Felix and her friend Letty Salcido live right across the street from the shelter. The 13-year-olds go to Safford Middle School.

“I like living here—it’s pretty cool,” Karina says. Seeing people in need motivated her to get involved a couple years ago. “I help them stuff envelopes for people to donate money; I print things like fliers; and I help organize stuff,” she says. For the Thanksgiving Street Banquet, she and Letty helped pass out out free dog food, pet blankets and toys because pets are also caught up in these bad economic times.

Letty started volunteering at the mission because of her friend. “Karina told me about it. If you get bored, you can come volunteer and help other people. It’s important,” Letty explains. During the banquet, “I’ve been running back and forth, passing out plates. It’s (my) first time passing out the food. It’ll get tiring after a while,” she says.

Kareem Smallwood, 9, from Desert Christian showed up early with his brother, Khalil, 13, and their mom, Danya McKinney.

“I started helping out at 7:30 this morning. I started with setting up tables and table placemats so we could start serving,” Kareem shares.

Khalil says getting up so early may be the toughest part of what he did. “We’ve been setting up chairs, writing stuff on the placemats and taping everything down (so it doesn’t blow away). It’s not hard work,” he says.

The boys are inspired by their mom, who’s an Air Force weather forecaster. On weekends, she spends much of her time helping the community. “I do Habitat for Humanity, and I’ve been helping with park cleanups,” the senior airman says. “They’re important because it’s our community. If we’re going to live here, we need to make it look halfway decent.” She says that seeing her sons help in the community makes her very proud.

More Ways Kids Can Give

Obviously, food banks all over Arizona struggle to get people the food they need. Many classrooms this time of year hold food drives for great places like St. Mary’s Food Bank and the Community Food Bank.

Working together, it’s just amazing what kids can accomplish.

“We can handle non-perishable food,” Parris explains. “That’s cereal, canned foods, peanut butter, macaroni and cheese, pasta, beans, rice …anything like that we can use.” One can of green beans or one box of mac and cheese at a time really adds up when it comes to schools, scout troops and other groups collecting food. In fact, some schools collect several TONS of food for their local food bank this time of year!

“The thing we need right now during the holidays is for them to do a food drive, or they can do a fund drive—a money drive,” Parris suggests. “We love food, but money actually goes further for us. For every $1 that we receive, we can leverage that into $9 worth of food. That’s due to our national buying power. We belong to a national organization called Feeding America.”

Gallego Elementary kids recently broke out the buckets and the towels to earn money for the food bank and raised $225. “We were floored that in just one car wash they were able to raise that much,” Parris says. If you do the math, how much food was the food bank able to buy with that $225?

To see how you can help the Community Food Bank, visit www.communityfoodbank.org.

Toys for Tots Needs Toys NOW!

‘Tis the season for laughter, love and, of course, TOYS! Whether it’s serving in some far away land or lending a helping hand back here in the states, Marines always seem to do heroic things. And this year’s Toys for Tots drive is a big one!

“At this point, we have requests for 190,000 toys, but I have (more) orders coming in every day,” explains Sgt. Samuel Bowe, who runs the toy drive for Phoenix and the rest of Maricopa County.

“We definitely can use all the toys we can get. We’ve given out about 25,000 toys already,” Sgt. Bowe says. “Every year the demand goes up, and with the rising unemployment, there are people who aren’t able to provide the Christmas they’d like to for their children.”

The time has passed for individual families to request help, but church groups, non-profit groups and other kid-oriented organizations can still request toys from Toys for Tots. “We have 181 requests right now. They vary from 100 to 4,000 toys (needed), and we’re starting to fill the orders,” Sgt. Bowe explains.

Toys need to be new and unwrapped. They can be dropped off at any Marine recruiting station and at over 100 other locations around the Valley. (Visit www.toysfortots.org for drop-off spots.) Sgt. Bowe says they really need presents for kids 0 through 5 years and for tweens (ages 12 through 15). All toys donated in an area go to kids in that area. Toys for Tots accepts money donations as well.

Little Gifts Mean a Lot!

Whether you put in a buck or two into the red kettle of a Salvation Army bell ringer or give to the Ronald McDonald House, those few dollars add up to a lot of help for people who need it! There are countless worthwhile agencies and organizations that you can help this season. Several malls even have special wish trees set up, where you and your family can pick a card with the name of a kid and what that kid would like for the holidays!

Goin’ Wild About Volunteering

Your love of animals can also turn into a worthwhile way to give. Animal shelters run on a tight budget and can always use donations. A few even allow kids to do volunteer work for them!

But John Spencer, a freshman at Fountain Hills High, likes things a bit more wild when it comes to volunteering. For years, he’s helped out with his mom at Liberty Wildlife, a REHABILITATION center that specializes in native birds like eagles, owls, hawks and ravens. (They take in injured snakes, gila monsters and tortoises, too.)

Kids who want to volunteer at Liberty Wildlife have to be accompanied by a parent and aren’t allowed to work directly with the wild birds. But there are lots of great opportunities to help.

John’s mom, Wendy Bozzi, volunteers at Liberty at least every week and brings John along to help.

“She does daily care every Sunday, and I usually go with her,” John says. “We get out there pretty early, around 6 a.m.” The adult volunteers are assigned certain areas of the center, where they feed the injured animals and clean the enclosures.

“I like working in the very back of Liberty, near the great horned owl enclosure,” John says. “I like to do the owls’ enclosure. The owls have to be taken out because one of them is a little bit aggressive.”

Another important function of Liberty Wildlife is to connect people, especially kids, with nature. So volunteers go to schools and community events to teach folks young and old about Arizona wildlife. John has grown up helping his mom on these educational outings, lugging containers and cages to teach people about wildlife.

He’s learned a lot and likes to share what he knows with others. “I like seeing the fascination when you’re talking to a younger group,” John says. “You start telling them the facts and they’re blown away!” Visit Liberty Wildlife at www.libertywildlife.org for more information