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‘Indigo Kids Club’ turns idle time into community service

Published Wednesday, March 03, 2010 12:59 PM

By Frank Johnson
The Gazette

Rosa Jones of Goose Creek says the idea came to her a little over a month ago.

Jones, who moved to Goose Creek from Florida in 2004, said her neighborhood is filled with “many great kids,” but she noticed that they were in need of something constructive to do.

“These are neighborhood kids that are always around … and they were idle,” she said with a laugh. “They are very good kids, but they weren’t doing anything.”

Jones’ idea: begin a club for the kids that would turn idle time into a time to serve the community, and world.

Thus began the Indigo Kids Club.

“I said, okay, let’s start doing community work, and find different organizations to work with,” Jones said.

While it is still in its infancy, the club has already gone door-to-door to collect donations for the victims of the recent earthquake in Haiti, and other projects are in the works.

Jones lives on Indigo Road, and the club is made up of kids who also live in the area, she said.

For the Haiti fundraising drive, Jones accompanied the young people as they knocked on doors of neighbors to ask for donations. “I went through the Red Cross,” Jones said. “We knocked on doors in groups … each (group of three or four kids) taking one side of the street.”

The door-to-door project lasted only a few hours, but Jones said it laid the groundwork for installing a sense of community into the young volunteers.

“I don’t try to interfere with their school or anything or their homework,” she said. “We try to do it on the weekends.”

She said the club will meet once a month. “I go on the Internet and see what organizations out there are in need.”

Yet the club will also volunteer its services to nearby neighbors. Jones said the kids recently made fliers that they will put up around their neighborhood, asking local senior citizens to contact the club if they need assistance.

“We’ll be doing different things,” Jones said. “Maybe there is an elderly person in the neighborhood who needs their yard raked. Little things like that … we can help out, if they need anything.”

Club members range in age from 5 to 13, Jones said.

Following their fundraising efforts for the Red Cross, the kids wrote down their feelings.

“The gift of giving is greater than you can imagine,” 13-year-old Josh Grimsley wrote. “Just knowing that I can make a difference makes me feel good about myself.”

For more information on the club, call Jones at 572-8209.

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