The 10 Youth Summer Service Projects to Know About

GenerationOn is the global youth service movement igniting the power of all kids to make their mark on the world. As Points of Light’s youth service enterprise, generationOn inspires, equips and mobilizes youth to take action through generationOn service clubs, schools, youth organizations, campaigns and youth leadership initiatives. It also provides tools and resources to youth, families and educators to help kids change the world and themselves through service. To learn more about how to get involved, visit www.generationon.org.

When you think of youth and summer, you might imagine lazy days playing video games, fun in the sun at sleep-away camp or ice cream-scooping summer jobs. Would you imagine that 14,000 youth would lead meaningful service projects in their communities? Well, they did.

This summer, we collaborated with Hasbro on The World Needs More Community Action Heroes campaign which asked kids and teens to join forces to do good. It turns out that youth are eager to use their free time to make a difference. We received service stories from around the globe on projects ranging from neighborhood disaster preparedness to human rights. After reviewing some of the most amazing service stories we’ve ever read, we selected 10 projects to receive $500 grants to continue their work.

Without further ado, here are the 10 recipients of the 2012 Community Action Hero grant:

• Michael Carpenter, Ohio
• Khawater Hussein, Oregon 
• Kids Care Club and Girl Scout Troop #80558, Ohio
• NetZero Environmental Club at Fairview High School, Colorado
• The Saylor Family, Tennessee
• Natasha Suri & Siena Spitzer, New York
• Raygan Sylvester, Arizona
• Isabel Talarico, Pennsylvania
• 2012 TeenImpact Campers, Virginia
• YouthRAP (Resident Activities Program) Summer 2012 Participants, Rhode Island

Read more about the campaign and find ways for youth to make their marks on the world on generationon.org.

We hope these projects have inspired you as much as they have us. We also hope that you’ll ask youth to serve. When they’re asked, they always go above and beyond.

To our 14,000 Action Heroes out there, we’d like to say thank you for making the world a better place and, as always, for knocking our socks off.

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Learn how to increase your capacity for youth volunteers with the Ready-Set-Go! Guide.

Educators, engage students in service-learning with generationOn Schools.