Kids Helping Kids from San Marcos High School make $5000 donation to Rwandan Pre-School

Kids Helping Kids consists of over 100 San Marcos High School AP Economic students and was led by CEO and class of 2011 member Ellen Gleason. This year KHK raised over $160,000, much of which is donated to the Santa Barbara Unity Shoppe and the San Marcos High School community. However, the students wanted to broaden their scope of giving and decided to also give to an international cause.

This past November, 2010, Rwandan genocide survivor Frederick Ndabaramiye visited San Marcos as part of the San Marcos High School Leadership class lunch lecture series. He described his story of being captured and tortured by rebels and his struggles to regain his individuality despite having his hands cut off. He has become an artist and has dedicated his life to other affected by the Rwandan genocide. Frederick has partnered with Jessica McCall to fund a nursery school and orphanage as part of the Ubumwe Community Center. Frederick’s story and cause inspired many of the Kids Helping Kids students in attendance. “It was an easy way to broaden the scope of KHK yet still stay local to our Santa Barbara roots,” stated Ms. Gleason, who will be attending Washington and Lee University in Lexington, VA this coming Fall.

For the past eight years, the Advanced Placement Economics students of San Marcos High School have collaboratively produced Kids Helping Kids, a non-profit organization which hosts a benefit concert and other events from which the proceeds are donated to the Santa Barbara Unity Shoppe, a local charity that provides valuable resources to those in need in our community. From its humble beginnings as part of the San Marcos High School penny drive, KHK has grown into a community-wide event providing students with a real-world opportunity to apply their knowledge while also giving back. Kids Helping Kids receives sponsorship from a multitude of local businesses and several major corporations. To date, Kids Helping Kids has earned over a half-million dollars. Kids Helping Kids thanks all the individuals and businesses who have made all of this possible.