The Amazing Kids!' award winning and kid-and-parent-approved website, www.amazing-kids.org, has gained worldwide recognition for being a safe, fun and exciting online "hub" where kids can go to get help in discovering their own amazing potential. Kids who know about us visit our website ready to get involved in positive activities in their lives, or to connect with other amazing kids who, like them, are looking for ways to make a difference in the world. Not just for kids, the Amazing Kids! website also serves as an inspiration for adults wishing to help kids explore, discover and realize their amazing potential.

Our unique programs such as our Amazing Kids! PenPals and Amazing Mentors! programs provide specialized services that are unique to Amazing Kids! Through these programs alone, we have helped connect hundreds of kids from around the world, either with other kids as traditional letter-writing pen pals, or with caring and supportive adult mentors who are dedicated professionals from respected organizations like DreamWorks Animation, ESPN and American Greetings.

Our Amazing Kids! eZine, our quality-focused literary online magazine, is run by the kids themselves, who are in turn mentored by adults. This unique mentoring relationship provides these amazing budding young writers, editors and publishers with an excellent "hands-on" introduction to the worlds of journalism and publishing. Many of our former Editors have gone on to receive scholarships and awards like the Coca-Cola Scholarship and Harris Wofford Award, and to be accepted into prestigious universities and programs such as the Morehead-Cain Scholars Program at University of Chapel Hill, North Carolina.

More than ever, kids today need positive peer role models to learn from and emulate. Our Amazing Kids! of the Month stories have consistently filled a void, becoming the number one online resource today for stories about amazing kids. These stories have encouraged kids across the globe to get involved in their own amazing projects, so they can be nominated for consideration for the Amazing Kids! of the Month award.

I'm delighted to report that our ground-breaking work has helped pave the way for other organizations, in both the public and private sectors, to join us in reporting and rewarding the "good news" about kids.

For example, our stories have inspired countless others to feature our "Amazing Kids" in their work, in everything from awards programs like Build-A-Bear's Huggable Heroes and Nestlé's Very Best In Youth, to media outlets such as national television talk shows like Oprah and The Tonight Show, national news programs like CNN and NBC Nightly News and in magazines like Scholastic News; from major national newspapers, international publications, educational textbooks and videos, to school district websites and kids' and teachers' personal web pages. A number of our kids have been featured on television in Disney Channel's long-running interstials segment entitled "Check This Kid Out!" (I was hired as a casting consultant on that project.)

The overwhelming success of the Amazing Kids! website has shown that people across America and beyond recognize how vital it is to help our kids focus on their own unique potential to be achievers. In doing so, we are helping direct kids' attention away from the negative-focused, sensationalistic stories about kids to which we are all-too-often exposed. We are directing kids towards positive, productive activities and away from negative activities that could send them down the wrong path in their lives.

Ultimately, Amazing Kids! shows kids that it's cool, fun and rewarding to utilize their unique potential to its fullest and be "amazing" in their own way.

Finally, I'm excited to announce that now, with our new Launch My Dream! initiative, we are not only able to highlight the amazing accomplishments of children, we are helping kids launch their dreams for their amazing future! Launch My Dream! is a collaboration between other organizations, schools, businesses, corporations and individuals, all working together to help gather the resources kids need to launch their dreams.

We have some big plans ahead for Launch My Dream!, so stay tuned! Among them, two of our goals are to develop an Online Resource Center and to create a fully-endowed Launch My Dream! Scholarship Fund that will give the kids selected for our initiative scholarships that will help them reach for and achieve their dreams.

By pooling our resources and working together in this way, we can help more kids realize their potential. Together, we can work to insure that no child's amazing potential ever goes to waste!

I wholeheartedly welcome you, your friends, families and colleagues to join us in this worthy and worthwhile effort. Please show your support by making a donation today. Our kids, the very future of our world, are counting on us.