• Name: Caroline
• Age: 10
• Activity: Fundraising for a local hospital through a cookbook she created
• Honorable-mention award: Nicki Fleming’s Whole World Collection
• Nominated by: Her mother, Julie

My daughter Caroline “cooked up” a project called “Charitable Chefs,” a cookbook to raise funds for our financially troubled local hospital. This was Caroline’s project from start to finish. She conceived the idea, typed up and distributed the fliers, collected and organized the recipes, and painstakingly typed most of them herself. With only a bit of assistance, Caroline then contacted local business owners to see if they would serve as distribution sites.

Caroline saw that a worthy local institution really needed help, and she had as good of an idea as anyone for what to do about it.

Once the cookbooks were actually printed, Caroline took ownership of the follow-through: delivering the books, collecting the money, keeping records, writing thank-you notes, and more.

The first cookbooks were printed in mid-December, and after several sellouts and three print runs, nearly 300 cookbooks have been sold.

On January 12, 2007, Caroline presented the CEO of Bertrand Chaffee Hospital with $1,100. It is expected that she will be able to make another donation in the near future, as 50 additional cookbooks have just been printed, and they are still a hot-selling item in our small town.

What is particularly impressive to me about this project is that Caroline thought of it on her own—not because it was required or requested by anybody, but because she saw that a worthy local institution really needed help, and she had as good of an idea as anyone for what to do about it. Caroline then followed through to make her idea become a reality.