Raising the Charitable Tween
By Jeannine Cook

“There is no such thing as charitable youth,” my Uncle Ebe said while buttoning his cardigan and heading out the front door. As he left I concluded that his Scrooge-like outlook –which as it turns out covers a range of topics – either comes from a combination of middle-age complications or just plain lack of vision. Nonetheless on another one of my crusades to prove to Uncle Ebe that the youth of today are more than just materialistic egomaniacs (as he would rather refer to them), I set out to find what I would later coin as the charitable tween. To say the least Uncle Ebe was extremely wrong and here are a couple of seasonal examples that prove it:

Dancing to the Oldies
Jenielle Jackson, 12

“Last year when my great-grandmother moved into an assisted-living home, my father would make us visit her, and I hated it. The place smelled like an old basement and Nana (that’s what I call her) would spend the entire time introducing me to her friends. When the Christmas season started to come around, Nana asked me and my younger brother what we planned on doing in the home’s holiday celebration. For as long as we could, we avoided answering the question thinking that maybe, like everything else, she would just forget. I knew I wasn’t looking forward to spending Christmas Eve in that smelly place.

But then one day I started to think about what I would do if I was to perform at the celebration. When I bought it up to my brother and a couple of my friends they laughed and made fun of me. I think that their laughing is what changed my mind. I thought about what it must be like to spend Christmas without any family or in a home –it really made me sad. So the week when Christmas came around, I helped the nursing home staff decorate the halls, burned some old-school CDs, and invited my friends to be a part of the celebration. The whole night was so much fun. They even let me be the hostess. Not only were my parents very proud, but my Nana and all of her friends seemed to have really enjoyed themselves. So even though the whole nursing home party idea seemed really corny at first, it turned out to be my favorite part of Christmas. I can’t wait to see what this year’s celebration will be like.”

We Are the World
Marcus Jones, 13

“I never thought of myself as a charitable tween, I just do what feels right. It felt right to go to the children’s hospital with my class last year for World AIDS day. My teacher, Ms. Powers, had discussed with us how many people across the world – that looked just like me – had this disease and I wanted to do something about it. I mean it’s not like I can give a bunch of money to help, but I know that I can give my love and time, so that’s what I did. That morning I was so nervous because Ms. Powers said that we were going to meet lots of children from all of the world who wanted to stop the spread of AIDS. She also said that we may be asked to speak on a stage by some important city people. After she told me that, for some reason I had a feeling that I wanted to get up and speak. At the event, which was kind of long and boring, I did get to meet a lot of other children who felt just as strongly as we did about this. And then when the man on stage asked if any of us would like to add a commit I raised my hand to speak. When I got on stage I froze looking at all of those children staring back at me, so instead of speaking I decided to sing We Are the World. About mid-way through everybody joined in. It’s kind of hard to describe how it all made me feel, but I know that we made a difference. That’s something that I’d tell anyone to try to do.”

Just Do It
Indra Mills, 12

“My mother always says that you can’t judge a book by its cover, and now I know why. Every year around Christmas time my church opens its doors to homeless people for a big breakfast. Up until recently I haven’t been old enough to help out and I was glad. Who wants to be around a bunch of nasty people is what I used to tell myself. But last year when the Pastor asked me if I was ready to join them, I felt like it was my responsibility and said yes. But the truth was that I still didn’t want to do it. I was kind of scared to be around people who looked like them, and when I tried to explain that to my mother, she just said what she always says: you can’t judge a book by its cover. So to make a long story short, when I got there, the older women put me in charge of serving cornbread. As the first couple of people came through my line, I wouldn’t even look at them. I’d just put the cornbread on their plates and look back down. Then this one elderly man told me to smile. He reminded me that it couldn’t possibly be that bad. He was right. Who was I to be complaining when this man was in need. The least that I could do was smile. Later that afternoon we pulled out board games and I found that old man to ask him if he’d like to play checkers. For the rest of the day we joked and got to know one another. He turned out to be a really cool guy. It made me feel good to know that I’d had a chance to help him have a Merry Christmas and Happy Kwanzaa. Now I understand why they say that giving is what the holidays are all about.”

Jeannine Cook is a freelance writer based in Philadelphia.