Ever wonder how you, as a teen, could make a difference and change the world? The summer of my sophomore year I was given an opportunity to head up an organization that would help children across the world.

Kids to Kids (K2K) is an international service project that aids children in Kabul, Afghanistan. It is a donation based and student run organization that creates books on tape to send to new schools in Kabul.

Since starting the project, my overall mentality of what it means to "help" someone has changed drastically. K2K paved a new road for me in understanding what helping is. When I send a book on tape to an underprivileged child in Afghanistan I feel like I’m really making a difference.

I use to figure handing a buck or two to the homeless people outside of Whole Foods Market was "helping" our society. As much as that is a good deed, I have recently come to thinking about how little a difference that really makes in our world.
My decision to start K2K came from another program, Trust in Education which my uncle, Budd Mackenzie, had started the previous year. Trust in Education is responsible for building schools in Afghanistan. My uncle explained to me that no nation should topple another’s government without accepting responsibility for reconstruction, once the war for control is over.

After further researching Trust in Education, I decided I had to help. I thought immediately of the innocent children in Afghanistan suffering from the propaganda of their country and every day living in fear of groups like the Taliban. When my uncle mentioned the two schools were in need of supplies, especially reading materials I jumped at the opportunity to create books on tape.

After making the first one hundred book/tape sets, I had run out of books. I called my uncle who told me that the only way to reach my goal of 500 tapes by August 30th, 2005 was to reach out to the local community and ask for donations. Fortunately, local families and libraries were extremely helpful with donations.
After sending out a newsletter regarding book donations, it is time to get more students involved. However, asking for the help of your local community is not as hard as asking for the time and dedication of your peers.

As a student it is easy to make a difference, K2K is a new program in need of more volunteers. Next year, I plan on turning my project into a Paly club, hoping that others share a common goal with me of making changes in our world.