Walk the Walk is a Change the World Kid effort to raise funds to support the education and health of children in Uganda who suffered during its twenty-year civil war. Child soldiers. Girls and boys beset by violence of many types. We cannot take away their histories, but we can make a difference for their futures.

During the Ugandan Civil War, thousands of children walked and ran miles each night to escape the atrocities of the war. Now these displaced children – many orphans – walk miles each day seeking food, education, and shelter.

Walk the Walk 2011 encourages people to go beyond “talking the talk” and take steps to action, metaphorically representing the nightly wartime walks of these children. In its second year, the event raises awareness in our community and funding to support sustainable quality education for this rising generation of impoverished Ugandans, abandoned through conflicts and diseases of war.

Walk the Walk 2011 takes place on Saturday, April 30, 4/30, at 4:30 in Wilder, VT. Participants can chose a 4 mile running course or a 3 mile walking course, which both start at the Dothan Brook School.

Last year over 150 people participated in Walk the Walk 2010, which involved a walk, simulated refugee camp to raise awareness of various issues facing the children, live music, speakers from Uganda, and an overnight. Over $4,000 was raised from sponsorships and donations! One of the Change the World Kids went to Uganda and helped put these fund to work building and supporting schools. That money provided:
• New books, pencils, pen, paper, and soap to 200 students
• New uniforms (sewn by a village tailor) for 2 schools
• New shoes for 2 schools
• Medic first aid kits for 2 schools
• The repair of an old well so an entire village can have clean water
• Renovation and building supplies for 2 schools
• Bunk-beds, with sheets, pillows, toothbrushes, a new book and stuffed animal for each child at a new school
• A month of a breakfast/lunch program for 47 the students in that school

Please join us this year or make a donation to make this event an even bigger success.

We are featured in People Magazine in the issue including Earth Day 2010, and also in a PBS and New Hampshire Public Television Special entitled Saving Songbirds!

People Magazine selected us as one of three leading youth environmental crusaders in the United States. They photographed us while we planted white pine seedlings along the Ottauquechee River in Vermont.

The recognition is for our work to protect and reforest critical habitat for songbirds, the mission of our Bosque para Siempre project.  In June 21 of us travel to Costa Rica to continue to reforest a migratory corridor that is this winter feeding ground of birds from the Northeast and other parts of the United States, as well as essential habitat for indigenous rain forest species. After piloting Phase 2 of our Bosque para Siempre project last year, we launched the initiative this spring. Our mission is to improve the summer breeding habitat of migrating songbirds. Our partners in this work include US Fish & Wildlife, Audubon, and local conservations organizations.

Throughout the season we plan to help plant 10,000 trees in degraded wetlands, on river banks, and along forest edges to provide food and shelter during the time that the birds breed and prepare for their migration. We’ll also help stabilize riverbanks, remove invasive species, and establish riparian buffers and forest corridors.

Our Bosque para Siempre project caught the attention of a PBS producer, and after being filmed in Vermont and Costa Rica, we are featured in a documentary titled Saving Songbirds! Released this fall by New Hampshire PBS, it will go national in early 2012. Check it out here!

On Friday, May 27, we’ll hold our second Great Garments for Global Good clothing sale in the social hall, followed by our annual yard sale on the lawn on Saturday, May 28.  These events offer quality items, bargains, great finds, and fun. You probably have cool clothes, jewelry, and accessories that you don’t wear or use. And you probably have furniture or things in your home that you simply don’t need, and someone else may love to use! We offer a creative solution to get them out of your home, plus make a positive difference for our communities and planet.

How can you help?

Donate good to excellent items (stuff you’d like to buy, gently-used) or baked goods. Items can be left by the green door on the left front side of the Universalist Church in Woodstock, VT, beginning on May 1. Please call 802-457-2622 before dropping off large or valuable pieces, and please no old computers, electronic equipment that does not work perfectly, office equipment, or large appliances. It’s helpful if you bring clothing in plastic bags or cardboard boxes.

Come to the Friday evening event on May 27 between 5:30-8:30 in the dining hall of the Universalist Church in Woodstock. Catch up with friends and find some great outfits!

Join us at our yard sale on Saturday, May 28 from 10:00-2:30 for bargains!

Congratulations to the winners of our raffle, who live in Northeast Harbor, Maine! The raffle raised over $8,500 to benefit our Teens Connecting Continents project in Rwanda. Artist Henry Isaacs generously donated a painting titled, “View to Tanzania from Akagera, Rwanda (oil on linen, 38×52”),” painted just down the road from Rwinkwavu, where our project is serving children. The view is of the border area that once was the scene of tragedy during the Genocide. Now the area has a promising future as a national park. With great appreciation, we thank everyone who purchased tickets and made this raffle a success.

350

We are part of an international movement to unite the world around solutions to the climate crisis. Check out our 10/10/10 event!

In 2009, advocacy occurred before the December climate treaty meeting of world leaders in Copenhagen, and stressed the critical importance of reducing the parts per million of carbon in the atmosphere below 350.

On October 24, 2009, we joined people all over the world who held events inspire the world to rise to the challenge of the climate crisis, and to create a new sense of urgency and of possibility for our planet. We held two events in Woodstock, VT, and Change the World Kids were in Times Square with Bill McKibben holding signs and calling out for change. In Vermont, in the pouring rain and temperatures slightly above freezing, people joined us to advocate for significant and immediate change. It was awesome.

Forever Forest 350

The Forever Forest 350! Change the World Kids are partnering with Three Tomatoes Trattoria to reduce the carbon in our atmosphere, and improve the survival rate of neo-tropical migrant songbirds that divide their lives between Vermont and New Hampshire, and Central America. Cool! Last year we received 641 tree sponsorships of $1.

00, and Three Tomatoes donated 350 additional trees. What to help? Send $1.00 for each tree that you’d like to sponsor.

These trees will be planted in Forever Forest 350 tree plots. One plot will be the in migrant songbirds’ summer breeding habitat, and one will be in their winter feeding grounds. The trees will be chosen for their benefit to the birds, and the sites will be selected to provide optimal environmental benefits, which may include species that provide maximum carbon sequestration, riparian buffer, erosion prevention, softening of field and forest edges, or connecting forest fragments.

Seven years ago with Costa Rican biologists and conservationists, Change the World Kids established “Bosque para Siempre, “ a migratory corridor in Costa Rica critical to the survival of indigenous birds and neo-tropical migrants from Vermont.  This successful effort focuses on habitat purchase, reforestation, and education in Costa Rica to preserve a refuge for migrating and resident species. such as the at-risk three-wattled bellbird. The Forever Forest 350 will extend this effort into the northeastern United States.

Save Energy for Free 350

Good day sunshine – harnessing the power of the sunshine and the breezes! To encourage, educate, and energize people, we gathered to make clotheslines be things of beauty – for the visual eye and for the future of our planet. We painted clothespins, pinned them on 350 inches of clothesline, and created diaries to record the annual energy savings of 350 households that choose to use renewable energy instead of fossil fuels to dry their laundry.

Download this Poster: 350 poster download