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Do you remember what dreams you had when you were between seven and nine years old and how your days looked?
Interviewing two of Hong Kongs youngest changemakers
Today you meet kids that are just like any other children. They love to play, they are curious to learn, but there is something about them that makes them very special.
They step up to give back by organising fundraising events and collaborating with charities like Cary’s Cancer Fund,
Hong Kong Cancer Fund, The Children’s Cancer Foundation, Rett’s Roost, The Boys’ and Girls’ Clubs Association of Hong Kong, Ronald McDonald House Charities and Mothers Choice.
In this episode, you meet Jeorge (9yr) and Samantha (7yr) Petris who co-founded the Little Philanthropist, two young girls with a big desire to help others.
After a family friend was diagnosed with cancer, they decided to start fundraising to allow their friend to buy medication that was not supported by the Hong Kong government.
This was just the starting point.
Photo Credit: Little Philanthropist The girls donated their hair to support cancer patients.
Their project-based organisation Little Philanthropist empowers children to help their local community.
The organisation is children-led, involving the children every step of the way. From brainstorming ideas for causes they want to support, researching and learning about the charities that work in the areas they are interested in, the children take charge. They get involved in organising fundraising and community-building events like a recent Toy Sale & Charity Drive that brought together 69 volunteers, 43 of them being children.
For their first Toy Sale Fundraiser, they set ambitious goals and smashed them.
Leading up to the event, the kids approached several sponsors to donate toys. They aimed to collect 1000 toys and get at least 200 people to participate. They exceeded their goals by far with a total of over 11.000 toys offered for sale to the 200+ participants.
Photo Credit: Little Philanthropist
In preparation for the event, the young changemakers met three times a week, twice to collect and organise the toys and once to write thank you notes to the sponsors. They were busy painting posters, looking for more volunteers and organising additional attractions like face painters and tattoo artists to make it a fun event, allowing the participants to buy toys for a good cause and have a great time while doing so.
100% of the funds raised at the Toy Sale went to the supported charities.
The remaining toys went to centres for underprivileged families in Hong Kong.
Yes, the topics they are raising awareness for are serious, but that does not mean that the children are not having fun while putting everyone’s attention on topics that really matter.
Another volunteering project they are involved in supports the China Coast Community where the kids do arts and craft with the elderly. China Coast Community provides residential care for English speaking elderly people regardless of their financial circumstances. Doing arts and crafts with the elderly was the first volunteering project for the Little Philanthropist ambassadors, and it enabled them to give back to their community and make a lot of new friends along the way.
Photo Credit: Little Philanthropist
In this recording, Jeorge and Sam share why they love volunteering, how they organise their fundraising events, what they will do differently when they are running their next Toy Sale & Charity Drive coming up this autumn and how they motivate their friends to volunteer.
“We just ask our friends if they want to be in the Little Philanthropist.”
Just like that. Can we all just take note of this for a second? They just ask. If we all just had these kids guts to ask more people to join us on our impactful missions.
Their mission is to inspire and engage children in philanthropy and along the way they inspire grown-ups too.
Photo Credit: Little Philanthropist
Several people featured on this show have spoken at a TEDx event and they will all attest how nervous they were before taking the stage. The Little Philanthropist ambassadors fearlessly went up on stage at TEDx Hong Kong Salon Fantastic to present in front of hundreds of people. They opened people’s minds about the positive power of giving back to society and touched hearts with their presentation on the things they have accomplished so far. See for yourself in the video here.
“I want to put smiles on people’s faces,”
says one of the Little Philanthropist ambassadors on the TEDx stage.
All of the organisations that are featured on #impact Podcast ask themselves the – often dreaded – question how to measure their impact.
Listen to these kids and you will quickly realise, it is not that scary!
Measuring their impact only in sums of money collected would miss out so much as they explain in their TEDx talk.
“Many people ask us questions like how much did you raise or what’s the total. We’ve been thinking about the reply. Total earnings do not measure the success of the event, nor the experience learned. We’ll continue to drive that energy, build our love and feed our ambition to make the world a better place. We’ve touched people’s lives forever, and that’s something we’ll never forget.”
Well said. There is so much we can learn from these kids.
TAKE ACTION
Find out more about the Little Philanthropist on their website, follow them on Facebook and if you are inspired by them, share their story, get in touch and get involved. If you are based in Hong Kong, make sure to join their next fundraising event.
Read more about why measuring your impact is not scary here.
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