I am 10 years old in this photo and as
you can probably guess swimming was a
big part of my childhood now I’m not
here to tell you that I went on to
become an Olympic swimmer that didn’t
happen
I’m here to talk about what I wasn’t
doing during my youth and that was this
I was not volunteering in fact my first
volunteer experience didn’t happen until
I was in high school and that was
because I had to fulfill a service
requirement so today I’m on a mission to
change that I’m on a mission to get kids
younger than my myself involved in
service because today my experience so
many years ago is very similar to what
many kids are experiencing 3 out of 4
parents have their kids involved in an
organized for it
something like that and most kids don’t
get their first taste of volunteering
until they’re in their middle school or
high school years and I think that’s too
late kids are actually great volunteers
and despite my not having been one of
those kids in my youth I am a firm
believer that volunteer service is a
critical training tool in building
kindness and in building empathy and my
god the world needs a lot more of each
of those things
so how did I get from being that
ten-year-old clutching that swimming
trophy not ever having volunteered to a
self-confessed service junkie arguing to
get little ones involved in service it
started 17 years ago when I was home
visiting my family in Michigan I was
helping my niece Elise get dressed
and as I was taking things out of her
drawer clothes that she’d outgrown
already yet still had their tags on them
it occurred to me that she was growing
so fast that there were a lot of things
in her world that she was no longer
using books that she hadn’t read toys
that she’d never played with and clothes
that had never been worn
now I didn’t have kids of my own at the
time and that’s why I think it really
stood out for me and with my training in
management consulting I often looked at
questions of supply and demand
I imagined other closets other drawers
other play rooms much like Elise’s
across the country and I saw a supply
and demand problem that I thought I
might help solve which was putting those
things that were no longer being used
into the hands of kids who could really
use them and so I left consulting and I
started a nonprofit organization called
cradles to crayons this is a view inside
our Boston warehouse we call it our
giving Factory and every day volunteers
youth and adults alike help collect and
process and package up kids items so
that they can reach another child who
really needs them and in the 15 years
we’ve been doing this we’ve reached more
than 1 million children we’re now in
three cities
Boston Philadelphia and Chicago and for
a kid who didn’t grow up volunteering I
have been amazed at the power of
volunteering not just to drive our
mission but what it does for the person
who is volunteering what it can do to
make that person feel a sense of
connectedness to something beyond
themselves and to feel really good about
the practice of giving I believe that
volunteerism particularly for young kids
can build empathy so what is empathy
well in layman’s terms it’s really the
ability to put yourself in someone
else’s shoes like this little boy to get
outside of yourself and to imagine and
experience what someone else is
experiencing and to feel compelled
toward kindness now I am NOT a scientist
and I’m not a researcher but there’s a
lot of research that’s been done in this
area and what we know is that we are
born with empathy babies will COO when
they sense or see distress and this
little girl she is comforting her baby
brother because he is in pain it makes
him feel better and it makes her feel
better and so that’s great we’re all
hardwired for empathy so why am I here
talking about service well because I
think that empathy is like a muscle and
like any muscle it needs to be flexed
empathy needs to be nurtured because if
it is not then it can be pushed to the
side in favor of convenience
or efficiency or worse yet cynicism now
the good news is that empathy can also
be trained and so there was a recent
study with some medical residents where
those who had received training in
empathy were actually shown to have more
concern and caring for their patients
which has resulted in better patient
outcomes so that’s really exciting if
adults can learn empathy what about kids
what can we do to flex their empathy
muscle over the last 15 years I’ve had
the pleasure of being able to work with
and observe thousands and thousands of
young children who are volunteering with
us they’re helping us collect donations
and process them and I have seen them
make small and sometimes larger
transformations so imagine what could
happen if we had more kids involved in
service now volunteering works well for
young kids when it’s intentional and
over the years we have learned that a
good volunteer experience for
particularly young kids happens when
it’s social when it’s hands-on and when
it’s familiar now I want to share one
quick example of a ten-year-old boy and
I’m gonna call him Quinn Quinn is on the
autism spectrum and his mom told us that
he’s largely nonverbal Quinn and his mom
came in to volunteer and they were in
our shoes station
helping to sort and then match shoes on
his way home in the car Quinn said to
his mom that was powerful his mom had
never heard him use that expression
before he got home he ran upstairs and
into his closet and he pulled out a pair
of brand new Nike sneakers sneakers that
he had been begging his mother to get
for him he handed them to her
and he said mom can you take these two
cradles so that is a parent who is
helping her child flex that empathy
muscle there are 36 million children
between the ages of 5 and 13 if we could
get those kids to feel that volunteering
was as natural as going to the park or
playing soccer or doing their homework
if we could put that innate goodness of
those 36 million children to work in
making the world a kinder place I think
that would be really powerful and it’s
urgent in my view when you look around
when you hear conversations increasingly
what we are hearing is disrespect is
misunderstanding is a lack of interest
in learning about one another I believe
our country is at risk we must show our
kids how to be better we have this quote
by John F Kennedy on the wall in our
Boston giving factory children are the
world’s most valuable resource and its
best hope for the future join me let’s
build an army
of empathy so that we can make the world
a kinder place thank you
[Applause]
you can probably guess swimming was a
big part of my childhood now I’m not
here to tell you that I went on to
become an Olympic swimmer that didn’t
happen
I’m here to talk about what I wasn’t
doing during my youth and that was this
I was not volunteering in fact my first
volunteer experience didn’t happen until
I was in high school and that was
because I had to fulfill a service
requirement so today I’m on a mission to
change that I’m on a mission to get kids
younger than my myself involved in
service because today my experience so
many years ago is very similar to what
many kids are experiencing 3 out of 4
parents have their kids involved in an
organized for it
something like that and most kids don’t
get their first taste of volunteering
until they’re in their middle school or
high school years and I think that’s too
late kids are actually great volunteers
and despite my not having been one of
those kids in my youth I am a firm
believer that volunteer service is a
critical training tool in building
kindness and in building empathy and my
god the world needs a lot more of each
of those things
so how did I get from being that
ten-year-old clutching that swimming
trophy not ever having volunteered to a
self-confessed service junkie arguing to
get little ones involved in service it
started 17 years ago when I was home
visiting my family in Michigan I was
helping my niece Elise get dressed
and as I was taking things out of her
drawer clothes that she’d outgrown
already yet still had their tags on them
it occurred to me that she was growing
so fast that there were a lot of things
in her world that she was no longer
using books that she hadn’t read toys
that she’d never played with and clothes
that had never been worn
now I didn’t have kids of my own at the
time and that’s why I think it really
stood out for me and with my training in
management consulting I often looked at
questions of supply and demand
I imagined other closets other drawers
other play rooms much like Elise’s
across the country and I saw a supply
and demand problem that I thought I
might help solve which was putting those
things that were no longer being used
into the hands of kids who could really
use them and so I left consulting and I
started a nonprofit organization called
cradles to crayons this is a view inside
our Boston warehouse we call it our
giving Factory and every day volunteers
youth and adults alike help collect and
process and package up kids items so
that they can reach another child who
really needs them and in the 15 years
we’ve been doing this we’ve reached more
than 1 million children we’re now in
three cities
Boston Philadelphia and Chicago and for
a kid who didn’t grow up volunteering I
have been amazed at the power of
volunteering not just to drive our
mission but what it does for the person
who is volunteering what it can do to
make that person feel a sense of
connectedness to something beyond
themselves and to feel really good about
the practice of giving I believe that
volunteerism particularly for young kids
can build empathy so what is empathy
well in layman’s terms it’s really the
ability to put yourself in someone
else’s shoes like this little boy to get
outside of yourself and to imagine and
experience what someone else is
experiencing and to feel compelled
toward kindness now I am NOT a scientist
and I’m not a researcher but there’s a
lot of research that’s been done in this
area and what we know is that we are
born with empathy babies will COO when
they sense or see distress and this
little girl she is comforting her baby
brother because he is in pain it makes
him feel better and it makes her feel
better and so that’s great we’re all
hardwired for empathy so why am I here
talking about service well because I
think that empathy is like a muscle and
like any muscle it needs to be flexed
empathy needs to be nurtured because if
it is not then it can be pushed to the
side in favor of convenience
or efficiency or worse yet cynicism now
the good news is that empathy can also
be trained and so there was a recent
study with some medical residents where
those who had received training in
empathy were actually shown to have more
concern and caring for their patients
which has resulted in better patient
outcomes so that’s really exciting if
adults can learn empathy what about kids
what can we do to flex their empathy
muscle over the last 15 years I’ve had
the pleasure of being able to work with
and observe thousands and thousands of
young children who are volunteering with
us they’re helping us collect donations
and process them and I have seen them
make small and sometimes larger
transformations so imagine what could
happen if we had more kids involved in
service now volunteering works well for
young kids when it’s intentional and
over the years we have learned that a
good volunteer experience for
particularly young kids happens when
it’s social when it’s hands-on and when
it’s familiar now I want to share one
quick example of a ten-year-old boy and
I’m gonna call him Quinn Quinn is on the
autism spectrum and his mom told us that
he’s largely nonverbal Quinn and his mom
came in to volunteer and they were in
our shoes station
helping to sort and then match shoes on
his way home in the car Quinn said to
his mom that was powerful his mom had
never heard him use that expression
before he got home he ran upstairs and
into his closet and he pulled out a pair
of brand new Nike sneakers sneakers that
he had been begging his mother to get
for him he handed them to her
and he said mom can you take these two
cradles so that is a parent who is
helping her child flex that empathy
muscle there are 36 million children
between the ages of 5 and 13 if we could
get those kids to feel that volunteering
was as natural as going to the park or
playing soccer or doing their homework
if we could put that innate goodness of
those 36 million children to work in
making the world a kinder place I think
that would be really powerful and it’s
urgent in my view when you look around
when you hear conversations increasingly
what we are hearing is disrespect is
misunderstanding is a lack of interest
in learning about one another I believe
our country is at risk we must show our
kids how to be better we have this quote
by John F Kennedy on the wall in our
Boston giving factory children are the
world’s most valuable resource and its
best hope for the future join me let’s
build an army
of empathy so that we can make the world
a kinder place thank you
[Applause]
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