Eliminate every manmade weapon and all war. I would make sure that everyone treats each other equally.
Lance Bass, *NSYNC Find one positive thing that everyone in the world could believe in. Prove to everyone there is a common ground in all people, no matter what race, color, sex, faith, rich or poor. Bring people a little closer together, and remind them we’re all the same. Just try to make it through life as human beings, and remember that every life is just as important as the next.
J. C. Chasez, *NSYNC Have free ice cream breaks for everybody. I would have children have more say-so in the world, and ban all guns and drugs.
Joey Fatone Jr., *NSYNC Put a smile on everyone’s face.
Chris Kirkpatrick, *NSYNC End racism and make equality for men and women. I would teach life through music.
Justin Timberlake, *NSYNC Melt every cold heart and mold them into new warm ones.
Scarlett Kotlarczyk, eleven Help people realize that people like me who learn and do things differently than them are still really the same underneath it all. We want to be liked and smiled at.
Wilson Cook, nine Find another way to test drugs instead of using them on
animals.
Brandon Barger, thirteen Make it so every kid would have a warm meal, and no one would go starving.
Timothy Blevans, eleven Open a house for all of the orphans of the world. I would get lots of people to help me take care of them.
Stacey Bergman, fifteen Stop kids from making fun of other kids. Prejudice is just what we don’t need. Kids hate being ridiculed.
Rachel Force, eleven Make people realize that it’s not what other people think of you, but what you think of yourself. You shouldn’t put yourself down when people say cruel things about you or do things to you, because they’re the ones that need a little Chicken Soup for their soul.
Sarah Hampton, fourteen Travel back in time, and make sure the people who invented drugs and smoking never discovered or invented them.
Lisa Cline, eleven Find a cure for diabetes. My little brother’s friend has juvenile diabetes. Every year my family “Walks for the Cure.” I wish there wasn’t such a disease because he has to take shots and stuff.
Kristin Boden, thirteen Want everyone to keep an open mind about everything, because with an open mind, you can accomplish anything.
Annemarie Staley, fourteen Make everything solar powered including factories, vehicles and all types of machinery. By doing this, there wouldn’t be as much air pollution and people could breathe easier.
Tracye Paye, thirteen
Give every child a grandmother like mine. She may not be rich and famous, but she has enough love in her heart for her twenty-one grandchildren and great-grandchildren, and plenty more to spare. How many millionaires can say that?
Casey Singleton, eighteen Make it so that kids don’t have to go through child abuse.
Kristen Hamilton, eleven Make every capable person do one hour of community service per month. This would include cleaning up rubbish, bathing and feeding homeless people, and planting trees.
Trevor Burton, nineteen Make sure that no one in the world is harmed because of their religion.
Pratima Neti, eleven Stop child labor, which is unfortunately still going on in this world. Children deserve the right to live, and working at a very young age will not give you that freedom.
Jessilyn Yoo, twelve Pay teachers more, because teachers are the foundation of all learning. Without teachers, the world would just be a useless space full of useless people.
Angela Rotchstein, fourteen Make sure that everybody in the world is able to read.
Reading is the world’s greatest gift for the mind and imagination.
Jessica Behles, fourteen Have everybody just agree to disagree instead of fighting. After all, we are all different, and have our own ways; this is the spice of life.
Jill Ananda, fourteen Plant the rainforests back all over the world, so that the trees will grow and the rivers will flow. I would bring back the animals that have died out, but without the dinosaurs!
animals that have died out, but without the dinosaurs!
Kyla Cangemi, ten Make the world a happier place with no bombings or school shootings.
Chap Arst, thirteen Show everyone the love that my adoptive mother showed me. I was angry at the world because I thought no one loved me or could ever love me. No one wanted a thirteen-year- old girl, but she came along and showed me that people could and do care about me. I would definitely give that to any person in this world. Love is all the world needs.
Mia Sifford, seventeen Give every child a blanket, not only to keep them warm, but to snuggle with. We each need something to hold onto, and a fuzzy blanket would help keep away the problems of the world, if only for a moment or two.
Steve Hayden, thirteen Let all the kids in the whole world know that they can succeed in anything that they put their heart into. There is always a solution for problems; you just have to look in your heart to find them.
Alysia Escalante, thirteen Fix that hole in the ozone layer so the heat of the sun won’t kill us.
Nikole Pegues, eleven Ask everyone in school to say one nice thing to another person every day. Have every family tell each other they love one another.
William Baun, twelve Have people talk to each other and listen more, and make sure that everybody would have enough play time.
Neil Gogno, nine Stop all the violence that is on TV, which is where people get the idea that it is okay to hurt or kill someone. When we were channel surfing, my stepmom and I saw seven guns
and three acts of violence all in one minute; even my dog got scared!
Bethany Hicks, twelve Want everyone to have at least one best friend that they could count on.
Andrea Hawsey, eleven Create vehicles that would run on natural resource waste material to stop the pollution.
Rosie Huf, eleven Get more clubs and activities going so that people would stay away from gangs, drugs and crimes.
Stacy Luebbe, fourteen Bring back all our lost loved ones for a day.
Rita Koch, ten Make sure that all children in the world can go to school, and have Chicken Soup books so they know that they aren’t alone.
Allison Opsitnick, twelve
A Run to Remember
Thirteen can be a challenging age. Not only did I have to adapt to my changing body; I also had to deal with my parents’ bitter divorce, a new family and the upsetting move from my country home to a crowded suburb.
When we moved, my beloved companion, a small brown pony, had to be sold. I was trashed. Feeling helpless and alone, I couldn’t eat or sleep, and I cried all of the time. I missed my family, my home and my pony. Finally, my father, realizing how much I missed my pony, purchased an old red gelding for me at a local auction.
Cowboy was without a doubt the ugliest horse in the world. He was pigeon-toed and knock-kneed. But I didn’t care about his faults. I loved him beyond all reason.
I joined a riding club and endured rude comments and mean snickers about Cowboy’s looks. I never let on about how I felt, but deep down inside, my heart was breaking.
The other members rode beautiful registered horses.
When Cowboy and I entered the events where the horse is judged on appearance, we were quickly “shown the gate.” No amount of grooming, vitamins or unconditional love would turn Cowboy into a beauty. I finally realized that my only chance to compete would be in the timed-speed events. I chose barrel racing.
One girl named Becky rode a big brown thoroughbred mare in the race events. She always won the blue ribbons.
Needless to say, she didn’t feel threatened when I competed against her at the next show. She didn’t need to.
I came in next to last.
The stinging memory of Becky’s smirks made me determined to beat her. For the whole next month I woke up early every day and rode Cowboy five miles to the arena.
We practiced for hours in the hot sun and then I would walk Cowboy home. On the way home I would be so tired, those five miles seemed twice as long.
All of our hard work didn’t make me feel confident by the time the show came. I sat at the gate and sweated it out
while I watched Becky and her horse charge through the pattern of barrels, acing the course with ease.
My turn finally came. As I nudged Cowboy forward he stumbled, and almost fell, much to the delight of the other riders. I jammed my hat down on my head, stroked Cowboy’s big red neck and entered the arena. At the signal, we dashed toward the first barrel, quickly whipped around it and with perfect precision rounded the second and thundered on to the third. We tore around the final curve and shot for the finish line.
No cheers filled the air. The end of our run was met with surprised silence. With the sound of my heart pounding in my ears, I heard the announcer call our time. Cowboy and I had beaten Becky and her fancy thoroughbred by a full two seconds!
I gained much more than a blue ribbon that day. At thirteen, I realized that no matter what the odds, I’d always come out a winner if I wanted something badly enough to work for it. I can be the master of my own destiny.
Barbara L. Glenn
Shining Down
You must be the change you wish to see in the world.
Gandhi
One dark morning while driving to work, my dad, Clayton Kavalinas, swerved to avoid a deer in the road. His car skidded on black ice, hit a guardrail and spun into an oncoming truck. He died in the crash. He was only thirty-five years old. Streetlights could have helped prevent the accident, but there were no lights on that stretch of highway called the Marquis of Lorne Trail on the outskirts of Calgary, Canada.
I was only eleven when he died. I was devastated over the loss of my father, especially when I realized that his death could have been avoided. In a two-year period, my father and one other driver were killed, and twenty-nine accidents happened on that area of the highway. Time and again I thought, How could I find a way to make my dad’s short life really count?
I felt triumphant when I figured out what I could do. I decided that I would try to get some lights put up in that area to help other drivers see better.
Once I figured out what I had to do, I fought as hard as I could to get new lights on that road. But I didn’t realize what a big deal that would be! I was determined and very motivated. I didn’t want what happened to my father to happen to anyone else.
I was studying government in school, and I tried to find a way to increase public pressure on city hall to install lights.
With help from my classmates, I handed out flyers at homes and shopping malls, and obtained over three hundred signatures on the petition needed to grab the attention of the politicians in charge of road safety issues. I contacted them, too, and told them what I was trying to do. I was pretty amazed when some of the politicians actually listened to a
kid! Finally, there was a meeting at city hall about the need for new lights.
Before the meeting, the local media found out what I was trying to do and reported on the problem. The reporters helped people in the area “see the light” and acknowledge the danger on Marquis of Lorne Trail.
With TV, radio stations and newspapers covering it, more people understood why lights were needed. They also learned what it was like for a child to lose a father. A lot of people told me they were touched and they decided to help. The public pressure began to rise and within four months from the morning my dad lost his life on that highway, the city council agreed to spend $290,000 for new lights.
Sometimes, going through the accident over and over, in order to make a point, was a hard thing to do emotionally.
At times, I had hard nights and I cried. But at other times, I’d be really happy and proud that my dad’s life was the one that made the difference in helping to save many other lives from fatal accidents.
I was never so proud in my life as I was on September 16, 1996, nearly a year after I lost my dad. Speaking through a walkie-talkie at the side of the road, I gave a city worker instructions to turn on the lights for the first time.
During the same lighting ceremony, I was given a plaque from the City of Calgary honoring me for my public service efforts. Since then, the number of collisions on Marquis of Lorne Trail has been drastically reduced.
While helping many people I’ll never even meet, I think I also helped my mother, my younger brother, Shaun, and my little sister, Kaitlin, become more determined to continue to enjoy life. I helped lift their spirits, and they were there to support me. We all cried together. We all laughed together.
We all thought about life together. My dad’s death brought us closer together as a family, making something positive come out of the situation and helping to ease our grief.
But it was really my dad who ended up teaching me a lot about determination, courage and faith. In his own way, through this project, he helped me grow up. I learned that if you’re determined, if you put your heart into something, you can overcome any obstacle. You can accomplish anything.
Life goes on now. The cameras have stopped filming
Life goes on now. The cameras have stopped filming and the civic leaders focus on other problems. But the streetlights will always be there to help me get through difficult times.
I know that I’ll always be reminded of the terrible accident and I’ll still suffer grief from losing my dad, but I gain comfort knowing that area of the highway is now a safer place. I feel my dad’s presence there. I’ll always have the comfort of knowing that every night, a little bit of Dad is shining down.
Michael Kavalinas, sixteen As told by Monte Stewart
Dreams
They say a person needs just three things to be truly happy in this world. Someone to love, something to do and something to hope for.
Tom Bodett
When I was three years old, I slept on a very small bed in a large room with twenty-five other boys and girls in an orphanage in Hungary. Being the youngest boy in the building, I got picked on often because I was the smallest.
My sister, Kristin, protected me when she could, but the older boys were really mean to me. Kristin and I had been taken from our birth mother when we were only babies because she couldn’t take care of us.
When I was about one year old, Kristin and I were taken in by a lady who became our foster mom. We thought we’d found a home and had really grown to love her, when about a year and a half later, she decided she couldn’t afford to keep us any longer. She told us that she was taking us to the orphanage for a visit, but she never came back to pick us up.
We had lived in the orphanage again for about six months by the time Christmas came. None of us got any presents at all. I had only a few clothes of my own and no toys. We got two meals a day but the bread was hard and the food was terrible. I had one good friend at the orphanage named Attila, and we used to talk a lot about what it would be like to have somebody come and take us away from there. Our dream was to have a real family and do things that most other kids did. I had never even gone swimming or seen a movie in my life. Sometimes Attila, Kristin and I watched the only show they had on television, which was Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
Two or three times, people came to the orphanage and talked to my sister Kristin and me, but they never came back to see us again.
One day, this pretty lady with big hair and a big man with glasses came to see Kristin and me. We couldn’t understand what they were saying, but the Hungarian girl who was with them told us that they had come from a faraway place called America. We spent a lot of time with them that day, and I told Attila what a good time I had.
They came back to see us every day for a week and took us for ice cream and long walks. The Hungarian girl told us that the man and lady wanted to adopt us and take us back with them to America. We were so excited and happy.
When I told Attila what was going to happen, he was very sad and didn’t want us to leave him there. I told him he should ask the big man if he would take him so that he could come to America and be my brother. The next time the man and lady came, he jumped up into the man’s lap and asked him if he could come with us. But, since the man didn’t speak Hungarian, he didn’t know what Attila wanted and just smiled at him.
Kristin and I flew on a great big jet plane to America.
Things look very different but wonderful here. All the food tastes great, and I have my own room with a big bed and lots of clothes. I got a stuffed animal of my very own: my first toy.
Everyone was really nice, and our neighbors even gave each of us something called a bicycle. It didn’t take long for me to learn to ride. Christmas came and there were lots of boxes under the tree for Kristin and me. America is a great place and I am very happy here.
After a year, we went with a group of kids to a special ceremony where we were made citizens of the United States! After the ceremony, two men with a TV camera came and asked us questions about what life was like in Hungary. That night we were on television like the Ninja Turtles!
I hope that Attila got to see us and I wonder if he knows that dreams really can come true.
Ryan Kelly, ten