There are no ends to the ways people who care are helping kids in our communities. From a police officer who tracks down graffiti taggers—then offers them art lessons—to a neighborhood group that turned a crack house into a child-care center, they all have something to teach us.

Helping Dads Get Active
In our 1999 story, A Father's Role: Making a Difference for our Daughters, we reported on Dads and Daughters (DADs), a group dedicated to helping dads build strong relationships with their daughters. At the time, they were putting the heat on clothing manufacturer And 1 for its T-shirts with anti-girl messages. After pressure from DADs and other groups, the line was discontinued.

A lot has happened since then. DADs suffered tragedy last fall, losing its 27-year-old deputy director Heather Sue Henderson to an 11-year battle with anorexia and bulimia that damaged her heart. Her dedication and passion continue to drive Joe Kelly and the DADs online community.

Through its redesigned Web site and biweekly e-mail updates, DADs has become a model of Internet advocacy. Among their successes: response to their e-mail alerts prompted Campbell's Soup and Sun-In to pull objectionable ads. This past Father's Day DADs launched a "dual dads" campaign, to encourage dads to be dads to both their own kids and those in their community who may not have a father figure. "All this from a couple people in an office in Duluth, Minnesota," Kelly says.

Turning "Taggers" into Artists
Our June 2000 story, Making Connections, Not Arrests chronicled Bridgeport, Connecticut, police officer Mike Gosha and his unorthodox approach to reduce vandalism—giving graffiti "taggers" art lessons and safe places to practice. "Sam" a teen with a growing rap sheet, hooked up with Gosha and his group, the United Youth Arts Partnership (UYAP), to hone his artistic talents and find a positive outlet for his energy. Officer Gosha reports that Sam is now a senior in a magnet high school, with a steady girlfriend and a steady job. He still is heavily into the arts and computers.

Like Sam, UYAP has flourished. The group now has six paid instructors, all visual artists, and is preparing to move to a new, larger space. In September 2000, it became an incorporated nonprofit, and in March 2001, UYAP, Inc. received the Red Cross Hero Neighborhood Impact Award.

Family Star: Still Rising
A lot of good things have happened since our October 2000 article, Rising Star in Denver, on the Family Star Early Head Start Center in Denver, Colorado. This was a classic example of a community taking matters into its own hands: a group of concerned adults turning a former crack house into a first rate Montessori Infant/Parent Education Center. The program caught the attention of the Ford Foundation, thanks to our coverage.

Director Lereen Castellano also reports that Family Star successfully purchased a building and plans to expand with a new program for children aged 3 to 6, set to open in 2003. "This allows us to complete the package, so to speak, by working with families for five to six years," says Castellano.

Still Bringing Kids Closer to Nature
In June, public radio fans may have heard Rusty Keeler talking about his one-of-a-kind playscapes for children on "To The Best of Our Knowledge," a Wisconsin Public Radio show. The artist and toymaker discussed how he uses natural materials to create one-of-a-kind play spaces for kids.

Back in February 2000, in Playing With Nature, Connect for Kids profiled Keeler, the founder of Planet Earth Playscapes, an Ithaca, New York, company that designs natural, community-built playgrounds for children. Since then, Keeler has not only been featured over the airwaves, he's also won 2nd place in an international playground competition. In Keeler's winning playground, children can drive tricycles through a large tunnel, dig in a giant sand area, and race down slides embedded in the side of a hill.

For more information, visit Planet Earth Playscapes.

Building on a Dream
Joyce Mason is a Washington, DC resident who bought a home for her family through a trial federal asset building initiative called the Individual Development Account (IDA) program. The program provides matching funds for lower-income families who save money to buy a home, go back to school or start a small business. Since our February 2001 article, Down Payments on a Dream, Joyce cleaned up her credit and got a new minivan for her family, all with the help of the community group sponsoring her IDA.

Across the country, IDAs continue to grow—there are now more than 250 programs in 44 states, according to the IDANetwork. Savings programs targeting youth IDAs are beginning to take hold. Watch for Connect for Kids' upcoming coverage of youth IDAs!

Birth of a Coalition
As soon as he heard that new state regulations in Virginia would allow foster parents to use corporal punishment on vulnerable kids, Steve Jurentkuff took action. He gathered as many child advocates, social workers and other professionals as he could to oppose the new regulations, and the Coalition for the Protection of Children was born.

Connect for Kids covered the coalition's campaign to convince the state board of social services that the changes would be harmful to kids in two July 2000 articles: Corporal Punishment for Kids in Foster Care? and Standing Up for Kids in Foster Care. In April 2001, the board withdrew the regulations. But the coalition lives on. "We've been able to maintain a powerful and diverse group of advocates to effectively speak for children who are unable to protect themselves," Jurentkuff says.

Charlotte Even Start
Parents make the best first teachers. That's the theory behind the Charlotte, North Carolina Even-Start/Family Literacy program that works with pre-kindergarteners and parents to help families learn together.

For adults, the program combines basic adult education, job readiness and parenting classes. Since our August 2000 story, A Whole Family Approach to Learning, 40 percent of adult students passed the General Education Development (GED) Exam, and 57 percent found employment. The children did well, too. On the district's pre-kindergarten literacy test, 98 percent of the students could tell the front of a book from the back, understood that text contains messages and could name all 26 upper-case letters. (The program's goal was to have 85 percent of students master these skills.)

Thanks to support from volunteers and the community—and funding from Even Start, the Knight Foundation, Smart Start of Mecklenburg County and the Charlotte Hornets Basketball team—the program is expanding to help English as a Second Language students and focus more strongly on community.

A New Strategy to Clean Up Lead Paint
When Santa Clara, California, became the first U.S. county to sue the lead paint industry for medical and other costs associated with lead poisoning in March 2000, Connect for Kids reported on what would become a growing trend in governments taking legal action against the lead industry (Lead Paint Lawsuits: A New Take on an Old Problem). Soon after, several other California counties joined in the legal action. The state of Rhode Island and two Houston school districts have also filed suit. Most recently, the NAACP announced plans to sue the lead paint industry as well.

Eileen Quinn of the Alliance to End Childhood Lead Poisoning says that the trend is gaining momentum, but like all efforts involving litigation, it will take many years to unfold. "Early rulings in Rhode Island and California have brought encouraging news," Quinn says.

Helping Foster Kids Pay for College
Beginning in fall 2001, Oregon foster children who meet certain requirements will be eligible for a full tuition scholarship to accredited Oregon institutions of higher education. Former foster youth Adam Cornell, who was featured in the Connect for Kids story, From Foster Care to College Life, helped to get the legislation passed.

Now a law clerk in Washington state, Cornell will work to pass similar legislation. "We know that one of major reasons that foster kids don't go on to higher education is cost," Cornell says, "but the legislation raises awareness of issues and says to foster children that they matter."

Keeping Up the Fight
Michigan activist Wendy Shepherd, who shared her experiences helping to organize a statewide petition drive in Michigan, reports that the group succeeded in collecting enough signatures to put the state's new, more relaxed, concealed weapons law to a popular vote via referendum—but that a closely divided Michigan Supreme Court rejected the referendum on other grounds.

But the fight continues: There will be a second petition drive, to begin on August 3rd and last 180 days. This will be to put a citizen initiative on the ballot to overturn or amend the new law. This kind of drive requires 242,169 valid signatures.

Read about Shepherd's experiences with the petition drive: Inside a Michigan Petition Drive and Inside a Michigan Petition Drive II. Organizers have a Web site. And if you'd like to read how some citizens felt—on both sides—please read the Detroit Free Press Letters from July 7, 2001.