Citizen of the Week: Small Changes for Big Rewards

This column is all about ordinary people doing extraordinary things. Do you know someone who is making a difference, has an interesting job or is just someone "you've got to meet?" Nominate them by emailing amanda.lindner@patch.com.

Rachel Shuster, 14, of Dix Hills, returned home from sleep away camp on Wednesday. By Thursday, she was visiting the United Nations to speak about global and social changes in the world.

Shuster, a sophomore at , started volunteering at age 11. Her philosophy was that small improvements within a person’s life can go a long way. With that idea in mind, she rounded up a dozen other girls her age and started a local chapter of GenerationOn’s Kids Care Club, called , which meets at the in Dix Hills. The teens and tweens of the club create projects to help brighten the lives of others in the community.

“I love the Kids Care Club because I really like volunteering, especially when you do it with friends. When you do it with friends, it makes everything more fun,” she said.

The club’s first project was to encourage healthy eating and exercise. The club baked healthy cookies and made fruit salad for the families at the Ronald McDonald House of Schneider's Children's Hospital. They also spent time with some of the families staying at the facility while their children underwent treatment.

The next project was to participate in the district-wide , an overnight event in which participant walk around the high school track to show that cancer never sleeps. The club raised more than $2,000 for families with cancer.

Since its inception, the club has grown to 30 boys and girls in grades six through 10.

Shuster had led several projects including a charity fashion show, clean up days at Hoyt Farm and the Old Burial site in Huntington, tutoring students with the Head Start program and much more.

Most recently, Shuster mobilized her camp friends to take on a project in which they created cards to place on meal trays at local hospitals. She had 300 campers work on the project and created 500 cards in total.

“It was great to see the look on the patients faces. Just to be able to put a smile on someone’s face makes you feel really good,” she said.

Her work with the kids club, got Shuster noticed within GenerationOn, the global youth service movement and a division of Points of Light Institute. She was selected from a pool of 200 applicants to be selected as one of 10 extraordinary young people from around the country to form the organization’s first-ever National Youth Advisory Council.

Through the organization, she meets with other young ambitious people from different parts of the U.S. to discuss how they can make a difference.

“It's a really cool opportunity to talk to people that have same passion that I do and to see how one need can turn into so many projects all throughout the United States,” she said.

Her efforts earned her an Allykatzz award, which is given to teen and tween girls making a difference in the world. She received the award on Aug. 11 at The Allykatzz International Year of Youth Culmination Celebration at the United Nations in New York City. While there, she participated on a panel to discuss global and social changes. Moderating the discussion was High School Musical Star Monique Coleman.

Her mother, Dina, who helped Shuster get started with the Kids Care Club, said that her daughter’s efforts are really about making tangible changes in people’s lives.

“She really tries to do hands on projects, not just fundraising, but actively participating so they can see themselves making a difference at end of day and feel and see that they've done something. It’s a unique thing to show kids that with their own hands, they can put smiles on peoples faces and make changes in the world,” she said.

Shuster is already planning the next big project, which will coincide with the 10th anniversary of September 11.

“It definitely boosts my esteem knowing that you're doing something good for others. It makes you feel good inside that you put a smile on someone face.”