By Angela Brown

Battlefords youth group hopes to make communities better through Kids Helping Kids

May 4, 2018 | 5:00 PM

A local youth with an interest in helping others has been busy this spring cleaning people’s yards to raise money for charity.

Emily Simon, a John Paul II Collegiate student, said she hopes to make improvements to the community with the spring cleanup project while helping others at the same time, as part of Kids Helping Kids, a non-profit charity business initiative. The Battleford resident and several other local youths are currently working on a project to clean people’s properties, and the funds raised will benefit charity causes. This is the second year of the spring cleanup project.

“It’s like a little business, but no one gets any of the profit,” Simon said. “All the profit, we donate to different charities.”

Simon said the group will be giving the profits from this year’s clean-up fundraiser to both the local Canadian Mental Health Association branch and a Me to We international charity project in Kenya. Simon said she will be participating in a mission trip with her brother in Kenya next year through the Me to We charity, so half of the profits from the lawn care project this spring will go towards the Kenya charity project planned for 2019.   

Simon is involved in the Kids Helping Kids project with about 10 other youths, offering lawn care clean-up work to residents who book their service. She takes care of organizing the work for the project as well as the finances, while several boys in the group look after most of the labour.

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The group offers comprehensive lawn-care services that include vacuuming, thatching, raking, fertilizing, mowing and aeration. The Kids Helping Kids team spring cleanup project runs during April and May. Local businesses donated equipment and supplies for the youths to use for the project.

Simon said her father used to run a similar business when she was growing up, so she had an idea to follow in his footsteps. 

“I wanted to do a little more in the community to see how I could help out,” she said.

Simon said they had about 70 residents request the Kids Helping Kids lawn care service in their first year, and the group’s profit ended up reaching about $4,000. They ended up donating $2,000 locally to KidSport and the remaining $2,000 to a Me to We project to benefit education in Ecuador.

angela.brown@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @battlefordsNOW