Every kid can get involved in charitable endeavors. Take 13 year old Julien Leitner. The philanthropist and founder of Archimedes Alliance, the non-profit organization that seeks to “encourage and promote philanthropy on the broadest possible scale,” believes that there are many ways for schoolchildren to help out and that doing so, is a very useful lesson. Leitner explained that engaging in this kind of activity “teaches compassion and empathy. It makes people more aware of the world. It teaches people to care for those less fortunate than themselves, and that knowledge and understanding stays with you your whole life. It’s what inspired me to start the Archimedes Alliance. I was conditioned for it. I was taught to be charitable from my family, and I finally decided I wanted to do something myself. I decided I wanted to change the world. Charity has changed my life, and made me want to change other peoples’ lives.”
Of course, along with parental support of charitable endeavors, the school system has to encourage children to give of themselves altruistically. One way of doing this is perhaps by letting them set up food for homeless people in the school cafeteria at the banquet tables. An important aspect of charity is to make the receiver feel welcome and important, not like some vagabond in the street. So if the school allows the children to really make a nice welcoming dinner and decorate the room beautifully, then this will be really taking the charitable idea to the next level.