Get the Facts

Every kid deserves a fair chance—but too many kids in the United States don’t get one.

• One in six kids live in poverty in the United States.
• One in fifty kids was homeless from 2005–2006—before the economic crisis even hit. Watch President Obama respond to this startling statistic. This CNN story shows what life is like for homeless families.
• There is one book for every three hundred kids in schools in low-income neighborhoods.
• Sixteen million kids went to bed hungry in 2008 at least once. Learn more from Voice of America.
• More than eight million kids don’t have health insurance.
• Four-year-old children from poor families are eighteen months behind other four-year-old children developmentally.
• Twenty percent of four year olds are obese. More about the study from CBS news.
• 160,000 kids miss school every day because they fear bullying. Find out about how one kid took on bullying with his own website in this CBS story.
• Poor kids are half as likely to have Internet access at home as high-income kids.
• When disaster strikes, only 7 states meet four basic standards for protecting children in schools and childcare.

Kids Can Make a Difference

We’ve had a longstanding debate in this country about the best path out of poverty for adults, including the appropriate roles for our federal and state governments.

We may not all agree on how to solve this problem for adults, but we can agree that every kid deserves a fair chance. And the greatest obstacle to a fair start is poverty.

Every American is responsible for making their generation the greatest yet and that’s true for the youngest generations, too.

Kids today can rise to this challenge. According to the National Corporation for Community Service, "the number of teens who volunteer has doubled over the past twenty years.” k2kUSA gives you tools and a voice to help make change so that every kid in America has a fair chance in life.

How You Can Help

Lend your voice to those in need and help bring about change. Get started now by getting involved with k2kUSA.

• Follow us on Facebook—help create an online community that's too big to ignore. Follow us on Facebook and urge your friends to do the same.
• Take the quiz—for each kid who takes the fairness quiz, we'll send a book to a kid who needs it.
• Buy Save the Children Valentine's Day cards—buy these truly unique Valentine's Day cards and help support programs on early childhood education, literacy, physical activity, and nutrition.