Giving Back: How My Daughter is Saving the Chimps One Friend at a Time

Original post: March 28, 2013

My six-year-old daughter made her first charitable donation this year. She decided to save the endangered chimpanzees.
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She’s an animal lover so the organization did not surprise me. The giving did. I donate regularly to wildlife organizations. She sees the catalogs, the free gifts. One day an appeal from Save The Chimps arrived in the mail. I did not know them, but asked Sofie — who had recently shown an interest in chimps and monkeys — if she wanted to donate.

She immediately said yes. I explained this meant giving some of her money. (I offered to split the $25 donation with her.) We also discussed why the chimps needed saving. She wanted in. She opened up her piggy bank. I wrote the check.

I thought that was the end of it.

A month later, the mother of one of Sofie’s school friends thanked me for my daughter’s activism.

“Huh?” I said.

“Yes,” she said excitedly. “My daughter came home last night in an uproar about people testing makeup on chimpanzees! She wants to send money to help them… and she even got her grandmother to donate to the cause.”

“Huh.” I said.

Sofie’s kindergarten teacher expounded. Apparently, Sofie had instigated a “Let's save the animals” campaign among her classmates. She told them about the plight of the chimps, how sad she was that they were being taken from their families and put into cages for experiments.

My daughter is becoming a social activist at school, yet all I hear about at dinner is how she played Star Wars at recess.

I’m proud of her, of course, so much so that I have been inspired to expand my charitable contributions via Eco-Mothering. Every season I’ll choose a charity to receive 5% of the profits made from my blog that quarter with a minimum donation of $25. The focus of my selected charities? The environment, of course, plus animals and children. Check out my selected charities — maybe you'll be inspired to give yourself.