Yesterday the kids and I talked a great deal about the earthquake and tsunami that hit Japan. We looked at information online about how earthquakes occur etc. The discussion inevitably turned to the people of Japan and my oldest asked what she could do to help. A simple question but I didn’t have an immediate answer so we headed to Google to see what we could find. Our search turned up quite a few organizations with information about how kids could help the people of Japan and other victims of natural disasters.

• Students Rebuild– Students Rebuild partnered with DoSomething.org and asked children and adults around the world to make paper cranes and mail them in. A donation of $2 per crane (for the first 100,000) cranes would be made to Japan relief efforts. This campaign ended on April 15th and over half a million cranes were made prompting the Bezos Family Foundation to double its initial donation of $200,000 to $400,000.
• GenerationOn – This site has tons of information and resources for kids, parents and teachers (and homeschoolers) including lesson plans and fact sheets. They have information on starting a coin collection campaign to help the victims of the earthquake in Japan.
• Team Kids – A California based group that provides school based and community wide services to kids in Orange County California. They have a campaign going in which children from around the world can hold a lemonAID stand with the proceeds going to the victims in Japan. This was the idea my kids liked the best.

We talked and have decided to set up a lemonAID stand near a local train station. The deadline on the Team Kids campaign was March 27th but on their site they have another date of May 1st. I’ve contacted them to see if we can still participate. If not we’ll still hold the lemonade stand and donate the proceeds directly to the Red Cross. I’ll be sure to let you all know how it works out.

Any other ideas for ways to help? I’d love to hear them.