It's a yearly ritual in Washington, D.C.—the president issues his budget blueprint for the coming fiscal year, and the analysts go into high gear, looking for winners and losers, crunching the numbers and calculating the political odds. Connect for Kids' Jan Richter looks at how the Fiscal 2005 spending plan stacks up for kids.

Are young people allergic to politics? The nation's youngest eligible voters stay away from the process in droves. Yet some teens are engaged, volunteer for candidates, and look forward to voting. Rob Capriccioso looks at what makes these kids care, and what that means for "get out the vote" efforts.

When we held our first-ever Talktime Live on-line chat in January, 2004 we had no way of knowing how many of you would take part. Quite a few, it turns out: more than 100 visitors had questions for Connect for Kids Director Cecilia Garcia and fundraising expert Bob Reeg about raising funds for non-profits. We couldn't answer them all in our allotted hour. But a few key concerns emerged from the list. Cecilia Garcia addresses

What will 2004 hold for efforts to improve public policies and programs for children and families? Connect for Kids' Jan Richter, who edits our weekly e-newsletter, sees a tough road ahead as election-year politics get in the way of compromise and negotiation.

The abuse and neglect of children is usually seen through a local lens—one with a field of vision limited to a family, a social worker, a county agency. In this column, Michael Pettit, president and founder of Every Child Matters, argues that we need to take a hard look at the often-ignored federal role in child welfare.

Serious fundraising, long a private school specialty, is increasingly common in public schools as budget cuts threaten valued programs. A tireless fundraiser herself, Beyond the Bake Sale author Jean Joachim says that from auctions to bake sales to comedy shows, sustained fundraising efforts can help build a strong school community.

Remember your first trip to the top of a really tall playground slide? Remember the kid who got to the top of ladder, but couldn't get up the nerve to slide—or climb back down? Modern safety concerns have made this particular rite of passage rare, and raise the question, does a safe playground have to be boring? By Rob Capriccioso.

No one has better insight into the needs of children with developmental disabilities than those children themselves, and their families. Leanna Skarnulis reports on a Texas program that trains family members and individuals with disabilities to be persuasive and persistent advocates.

Connect for Kids' Child Nutrition Campaign, resources for child victims of sexual abuse and reading programs for boys; these are some of the recent stories from Connect for Kids that drew reader responses. See what everyone had to say, and feel free to join the conversation.

For a small child, a blanket can be a lot of things—:a hiding place, a fortress, a portable piece of home. Connect for Kids Intern Kate Ashford profiles a New Jersey program that collects handmade blankets from a statewide network of volunteers, and gets them into the hands of children facing serious illness or trauma.