How We Started, The See Kids Dream Story
See Kids Dream was founded locally by Bill and Laura Grindle. The couple has two children and share a passion for community involvement and youth engagement. They also share the belief that children have an exceptional capacity for leadership, giving and connecting communities. The initial seed for See Kids Dream came from a discussion the couple had during one of their frequent car rides home after visiting family in Toledo. Unlike Bill, growing up as a child Laura had not been exposed to many opportunities to give back or become engaged as a volunteer. It wasn’t until she was an adult that she became engaged in her church and her community. During that ride Laura told Bill she wished she had been exposed to more opportunities when she was young. They both shared thoughts about their feelings on the impact service to others has on shaping an individual’s view of themselves and the world around them. They dreamed and talked about ideas and visions of how wonderful it would be if there was a way to engage children in volunteer activities and educate them about citizenship and community at an early age.
More than a year, and many conversations later, Bill was asked to travel to New York, by one of his client’s. He was asked to attend a meeting with an organization called Common Cents. Bill was working on a marketing project with the client to support the launch of a new journal. The publisher was planning to do a feature story on Common Cents in the initial issue. During the meeting, Teddy Gross, the co-founder of Common Cents told the story of how the organization started and grew from his own dilemma as a father to respond to his four-year-old daughter Nora’s wish to comfort a homeless man in 1991. His quest to provide a meaningful way for his daughter to help that man gave birth to a service learning program called the Penny Harvest that now provides all children a way to help. He described the program as democracy in action, and told about how children work together in teams at their schools to determine how they can address community issues. Bill shared the story of Common Cents with Laura when he returned home, they were both struck by the power of the program and it lead them to reflect on their car ride conversation. The client’s journal was put on hold and never actually made it to the shelves. The meeting however had a lasting impact and Bill and Laura continued to follow Common Cents and their Penny Harvest program. In 2005 when Common Cents received funding from the Ford Foundation to expand the Penny Harvest out of New York, the couple contacted the agency to inquire about Common Cent’s plans. They watched as the Penny Harvest was piloted in Seattle through a partnership a non-profit called Common Ground and ultimately in 2006 the coupled decided to run a small test in Columbus. Bill and the couple’s son Wilson were in a YMCA program called the Y-Guides. Bill presented the Penny Harvest idea to the other fathers in his group and they all agreed it sounded like a great program so they worked together to do a Penny Harvest. The Y-Guides went door to door and harvested over $2,000 which they ultimately donated to the Columbus Cancer Clinic to help support the organization’s food pantry. When the guides delivered their check to the clinic they also volunteered to help bag groceries in the food pantry. The groceries had been purchased with the funds Y-Guides were providing. This small test provided additional inspiration for the couple, having now seen it in action and observed the initial impact it has on a child’s world view.
Bill and Laura continued to dream about how they could bring this exciting program to Columbus and one day over breakfast Bill shared the couple’s dream with a close friend, Tammy Dosch. Tammy and Bill were board members for another non-profit organization in Columbus, LifeCare Alliance. They were meeting to discuss a project they both had volunteered to support for the agency. Over that breakfast at the Claremont, Bill told Tammy about how he and Laura dreamed about starting a youth organization and bringing the Penny Harvest to Columbus. Then Tammy asked the obvious question. “You are clearly passionate about this, what’s holding you back?” Bill’s answer surprised her, “fear of not being able to raise the funding needed to get the program off the ground.” Tammy said the potential of the Penny Harvest was too great and she encouraged that he and Laura should push through their fears, and she offered to help. They took her encouragement to heart and began taking steps to bring their dream to life and thus See Kids Dream was born.
Recently See Kids Dream was one of three organizations chosen by The Columbus Foundation as a 2012 Columbus Bicentennial Partner. This partnership is transformational in nature and it is enabling See Kids Dream to add staff and expand from the 17 schools that ran the program during the 2010-2011 school-year to a total of 50 schools next school year. The largest percent of the expansion will be within Columbus City Schools. The expansion will also include the addition of schools within two new districts: Dublin and Westerville City Schools.
The support of The Columbus Foundation is a major step forward for See Kids Dream. We are building momentum to serve our mission to empower young people to make a difference in our community and to sustain the growth this incredible partnership is enabling. Next year nearly 20,000 students will inspire us all with the work they will do to help others.