Cultural Care

Kids First Blog

Welcome to Cultural Care Au Pair's Kids First Blog -- a place where all members of the Cultural Care community can get updates on our projects, view photos, leave comments and share what they are doing in their community to help children worldwide.

Recent Posts

Kids First Foosball Tournament

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On Tuesday May 15 Cultural Care Au Pair's Berlin office organized an EF office wide "Kicker-Tournament" (foosball tournament) as a charity event for Casa de Zezinho in Sao Paulo Brazil. They had a total of 9 teams competing in the tournament and everyone who participated was extremely eager to raise some money for Kids First! Katrin and Kirsten, one of three Cultural Care AuPair teams, came in second just losing in the final match against the Language Travel Department team!! They raised a grand total of ‚¬65 EURO (about $103 USD) for the project in Sao Paulo!!

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Posted July 10, 2008 12:25:01 PM
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Kids First Book Drive

Cara, daughter of LCC Carol Anne Matina in New York, was inspired by Kids First. She decided that for her Silver Award project for Girl Scouts to ask her community of Garden City, NY to spring clean and clear out some children's books. She wrote letters to her school district and letters went out to hundreds of children. In April she stayed at the collection site for seven hours and collected books. Just when we thought we had enough, the books were being dropped off at her house for the next 3 weeks. We sorted through 1500 books if not more. We started with over 35 boxes and then called in the troops--Au pairs in our group came over and we spent many hours sorting through the books. Books were donated to surrounding schools in need and 10 heavy boxes are now finding their way to St. Mary's Academy in New Orleans. She is very proud to have put her time and effort into such a memorable and worthwhile cause.

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Posted July 9, 2008 1:53:36 PM
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Kids First Garage Sale

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On May 10th, 2008 au-pairs and host families from the Millburn New Jersey area in northern New Jersey hosted a very successful yard sale to raise money for Kids First. Knowing that everyone's time, effort, and the money raised was going to a great cause was plenty of motivation to contribute to this fund raising effort. Au-pairs and host families donated toys, clothes, books, and all kinds of different things for us to put up for the sale. Our au-pairs helped with setting up the garage sale and then selling the goods all while having a great time outside socializing with everyone who came. Some au pairs also enthusiastically put up flyers around town announcing the sale. They were very excited about the things their families had donated and played with all the kids visiting with the families.

We brought in almost $200, all of which goes to our Kids First charity! Everyone involved was extremely pleased with themselves and the effort committed to this event from all around!!

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Posted July 9, 2008 12:18:33 PM
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Pennies From Heaven

Aside from being a Local Childcare Coordinator I am also a school teacher. I thought it would be great to introduce the Kid's First program to my students in order to teach them the value of giving back. I still can't believe how excited they were to help. We organized a Penny Harvest campaign in our school and my students went from class to class explaining what we were doing. They even wrote a jingle that we sang on the PA system each morning to motivate the students to bring their pennies to school. Well, for the month of November, the students of P.S. 54 in Staten Island brought their pennies to school and before you knew it we had raised $350 worth of pennies for Kid's First. Yes, that's a lot of pennies and I am so proud of my students for all their hard work and dedication.

A penny might not seem like it can make a difference but when we all come together for a good cause, one penny can make a big difference.

Local Childcare Coordinators

--Donna and David Barr

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Posted July 9, 2008 12:06:43 PM
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Albany Team raises $ for Kids First

In order to raise awareness and funds for Kids First, the Albany Team has recently held a yard sale and collected returnable cans and bottles with all profits going directly to the Kids First program. Eight Au Pairs volunteered their time at the Juvenile Diabetes Walk-a-Thon while Local Childcare Coordinators sponsored them. Au Pairs and Host Families were asked to think of ways that their Au Pair could raise money to donate to Kids First and as incentive, those that gave $2 or more were treated by their LCC to a night of mini-golf or an ice cream sundae. Finally, the Albany Team has been passing around a donation basket at the Silver Bay Au Pair course weekend and are currently looking into designing some t-shirts to sell to local Au Pairs and families.

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Posted July 8, 2008 1:53:14 PM
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Cooking for Kids First

The Northwest Minneapolis Au Pairs teamed up with Pampered Chef Consultant Nicole Rice to raise funds for the Kids First program! The Au Pairs from Tracie Kapaun's group participated in a cooking show that taught us some great time saving cooking tips, showed some fun cooking tools, and along with that every purchase helped raise funds for Kids First.

The Au Pairs learned how to make Deluxe Cheeseburger Salad (see recipe below) using specialized Pampered Chef tools and participated in the creation from start to finish - including the sampling of our tasty dish.

Then the au pairs and host families were sent on their way to sell as many products as they could to raise funds for Casa do Zezinho in Brazil, Ubulhe Babantwana in South Africa and St. Mary's Academy in New Orleans. Our first Kids First collaboration raised over $130.00 for Kids First!

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Posted June 30, 2008 5:02:12 PM
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