Dear Parent or Legal Guardian,

If you are reading this, your son or daughter is interested in participating in a fundraising project with Kid by Kid Children’s Charities.

Kid by Kid^SM has been formed by a 9 year old 4^th grader with some help (okay - a lot!) from her mother. Rachel was inspired to raise money to help other children in need after donating from her own savings to a children’s charity that Hilary Duff is involved in. Although initially following a role model’s lead in making that first donation (thankfully, one whom I feel makes a positive impact and sends a positive message to her followers), it sent my daughter in a terrific direction and I am very proud of her and can’t think of a better alternative for her spending some of her extracurricular time. I know my daughter is blessed with an easier life than many, and I hope she will spend much of her life helping those less fortunate, and giving back to the many communities she is part of (School, Neighborhood, City, State, Country, World).

Rachel has set a grand goal of raising $10,000 for children’s charities. Not surprisingly, she has chosen Kids With A Cause, Inc. (the charity Hilary Duff is involved with) as the recipient of her efforts for 2004, but plans to choose a different 501 (c) (3) charity for every year that Kid by Kid is perpetuated. We are so excited that your child wishes to be an extremely important part of achieving this worthwhile goal!

We wanted to design a campaign that would keep all participant’s efforts and results fairly even. It has often been my experience that a child works their heart out to raise $25, $50 or $100 for a charity, and another child raises $5,000. Awards are often given out commensurate with amounts raised, and the one who raised the $50 begins to feel their work had less impact or was somehow less important. We brainstormed and came up with a two stage promotion that we felt would benefit everyone and make each child’s part in the campaign extremely quick, fairly easy, and a great learning experience.

It is not by accident that we first ask all participants to give exactly $5 of their own (no more and no less). It puts them in the spirit of giving. And, they know that every child has given equally.

Finally, your child is asked to request a donation from just five adults (whom you, as a parent, know and trust). Again, this is by design. We want every child to minimally ask the same number of adults, again making the child feel equally as important as every other who participates. And, there is no greater advantage for asking more than five adults.  Your child's chance of winning the grand prize drawing is the same as everyone else's regardless of how many additional adults are asked or how much money is raised.  We also emphasize that we do not want your child to ask for any specific amount other than increments of whole dollars to make mailing and accounting easier. (And, yes, we prefer checks versus cash.)  But, we do hope they mention that they gave $5 of their own money, which will help the adult understand that what your child is doing feels very important to him or her, and your child is a donation participant, too.  Other than your child giving as part of his or her own participation, only adults should be solicited for the 'ask 5 adults' portion and no money should be taken from another child.

We hope your child will be excited enough about this to tell their friends or child relatives.  While this was once a required part of this fundraiser, we made the decision to delete the 'Tell 10 Friends' portion on September 20, 2004.  

It is our guestimate that the average adult donation will be $5. If our estimates are correct, we will reach our goal if just 334 children participate successfully! Isn’t that amazing! The children will be able to watch the success of their group efforts by viewing our website ... http://www.kidbykid.org. We will list a first name and last initial for every participant, along with their city, state and school. And, we will run a cumulative total for the campaign (again, not differentiating anyone’s efforts). Regardless of the final amount raised, each child will have the wonderful satisfaction of knowing that he or she made an important difference in this chain of giving. And, your child will know that his or her effort was just as important as every other’s!

All children who return a completed packet, meeting all eligibility requirements will receive a Kid by Kid lapel pin and will be entered in a drawing to win 1.) a personal phone call from Hilary Duff, and 2.) a trip to spend the day with celebrity children in L.A., California at a Kids With A Cause charity event (again, whether they raised $20, $50 or $2000). The awards are not spectacular, and there is only one grand prize, awarded randomly from all eligible participants. Again, this is by design. It is my wish that most of the children get involved because of a desire to belong to a group that can make a positive impact in the lives of other children, not because they can win a superduper award.

We hope you feel comfortable with our charity and the design of our campaign. If you and your child are interested in getting involved with this campaign, please log on to our website at http://www.kidbykid.org and print the entire packet by going to our "Forms" link. Please be sure to sign the permission slip/official rules acknowledgement/acceptance and include them in your return envelope (along with all donations and required other documents - see the worksheet, checklist and official rules for further details), as proper paperwork completion and remittance is one of the conditions of eligibility to win the drawing. The entire packet consists of: the Permission Slip/Official Participant Rules Acknowledgement/Acceptance (which require a signature from you), the Official Worksheet (which require your initials in two places and your child's initials in two places), the Official Donation Record, and the Return Mailer Checklist.  Although it is not necessary to print out, we suggest you also view the Prospective Participant Letter (which is also known as the Welcome Letter) and the Official Rules.

If you do not have access to the internet or a method of printing and need a packet, please contact us at (888) kid-by-kid, or (888) 543-2954. We will be happy to mail or fax it to you.

Sincerely,