Omg Kids Making A Difference

We wanted to share a story about a nonprofit organization which is helping kids "Give Back", we hope you will share this story about these two amazing elementary students who are sincerely making a difference.  

Also check out what they are doing to help Sharks and Whales http://onemoregeneration.org/2010/09/17/save-the-sharks/ and http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=163429810347176   Carter (age 9.5) and his sister Olivia (age 8) are so passionate about wanting to make a difference that they started their own organization called One More Generation (OMG).

The two students have been adopting Cheetah's in South Africa (from the Ann Van Dyk Cheetah Center) for years and as they started asking why some animals needed adopting, we told them that unless someone stepped in and helped, there might not be any Cheetah's left in the wild by the time they had their own kids.  Well that was all we had to say and these two sprang into action.

Since starting OMG, Carter and Olivia have been involved in numerous initiatives both locally and globally to include:

They just recently returned from making a trip to the Gulf where they delivered badly needed Animal Rescue Supplies to the folks at the Marine Mammal & Sea Turtle Rescue Center in New Orleans.  You can read all about the trip and even watch a video on their website. www.onemoregeneration.org

We have been in communications with Pete Bethune (Ady Gil Captain from Sea Shepard) who suggested we attend one of their Nov 5th World-Wide Anti Whaling demonstration in Atlanta.  This was Carter and Olivia's first demonstration and they absolutely loved it.  Here are the pictures from the event: http://on.fb.me/9GnIdX

Carter and Olivia recently won the Grand Prize in a Nestles Heroes Contest.  The prize is essentially an ice cream party for them and up to 50 of their friends.  They both decided to share the prize with their classmates at their school since the entire school has been so helpful with our organization from the start.  The ice-cream party was last Friday and was held at the Fayette Montessori School in Fayetteville GA.  All the kids had a blast.  Here is a link to the story: http://bit.ly/bDt23G   Working with our State Legislatures on proposing Legislative Language changes to the current laws written by the GA DNR (Georgia Department of Natural Resources) in an effort to help stop the Rattlesnake Roundups in our state.  We have partnered with the folks from the Center of Biological Diversity out of AZ and their legal team has helped us write the language changes we want to introduce in November.  So far these two enterprising young students have collected over 1,100 signatures on a petition asking for change to the Roundups.   They are working to try and raise $50,000.00 for a Cheetah Rescue program in South Africa.  The Ann Van Dyke Cheetah Center runs the program and they are doing a tremendous job.  The process is slow and funds are extremely hard to come-by but they just held a silent auction a couple of weeks ago where they auctioned off painting kids in the community did of their favorite endangered species.   They are working with various organizations in our immediate area on raising awareness to the plight of the many endangered species across the globe.  We have an educational program that we present to the visitors of the Atlanta Zoo, The Fernbank Museum in Atlanta, the Georgia Aquarium, The Atlanta Botanical Garden, and the Cochran Mill Nature Center.   They are in talks with the folks from The Art Miles Mural Project (http://artmiles.eplanetsystems.com/), which is an international organization that raises awareness to various initiatives globally through art.  We recently proposed to them that we collaborate on such a project about endangered species.  We are very excited about the prospect of organizing such an event.

Carter and Olivia were just invited to be a guest speaker at the Caring for Creation 2011 Conference at Lake Junaluska, NC in March/April of 2011.  They are preparing their presentation as we speak for what will definitely be their largest presentation to-date.  See Sunday's agenda here: http://www.lakejunaluska.com/events.aspx?id=5460

Thanks to a meeting these two kids had with our State Congressman Lynn Westmoreland, a further meeting has been set up for us to meet with Deputy District Director Andy Bush so we can discuss the needed support for HR14 which coversOcean Acidification.  Carter and Olivia are very excited about this opportunity. (http://bit.ly/aoaziw)

They just hosted a “Water Event” at the Fernbank Museum on Oct 10th, 2010 where they discussed the importance of water on all living things and also partnered with an organization called Ryan’s Well which helps build water wells to poor villages around the world to ensure everyone has access to clean drinking water.   Also on that same day, they participated in a celebration at our Sate Capital building by being part of “Uniting Voices”: An Interfaith Worship Service Calling for Climate Justice, which is an event that hopes to raise awareness to the problems with our climate do to pollution etc.

Both events were videoed for inclusion in the “One Day On Earth” organization that is hoping to document historical events from this special day and preserve them for future generations.

Finally, they are attempting to work on a joint project with Jungle Jack Hanna from the Columbus Zoo and or Jeff Corwin to help raise awareness of the issues regarding endangered species to kids nationwide.  (This is one of the projects, which they really want to move forward with.  Although we do not yet have confirmed date for meeting with either, we are still trying ;-)

Well I think that about covers it.  We hope you will agree that this story shows kids everywhere that Anybody Can Make A Difference and that you will consider publishing their story on your site/newsletter etc.  Getting kids involved at an early age is our only hope to help change the global situation around and what these two have accomplished needs to be shared.   Should you have any further questions, or need any additional information, please feel free to give me a call at anytime.   Thanks for taking the time to listen and we hope to hear from you soon.

Best Regards from the entire OMG Team ;-)

Jim