Twenty million people die of starvation every year. Millions are homeless. More than a billion people in the world have no access to a doctor. For centuries, adults have struggled to solve these problems. I think the solutions will come from you, the next generation—Generation Fix.
I discovered Generation Fix while interviewing kids for my column “KidSpeak” in Child magazine. One day I asked kids: “What do you think we should do about pollution?” Total silence. “Maybe kids don’t care,” I thought, “or they don’t have any ideas.” I was wrong. The kids were thinking—hard. They took the question really seriously and came up with remarkable, creative answers.
After years of interviewing, I felt I had finally heard the true voice of your generation. I learned that you know and care about the serious problems we face in the world and are trying to make a difference. Your generation has ideas—some simple ideas, some complex ideas, and some ideas that might sound crazy, but just might work. The world needs to hear what you think, and learn about how you are already making the world better. That’s what this book is all about.
Each chapter in this book tells the stories of kids who saw a problem and did something about it. You’ll find out how kids just like you tackled hunger, homelessness, violence, discrimination, and problems with health care, education, and the environment. It was tough to choose whose stories to include—there were so many!
The kids in this book are ordinary—but their achievements are extraordinary. They have collected more than 5,000 boxes of cereal for food pantries, recycled 30,000 gallons of oil, raised a quarter of a million dollars to buy school supplies for needy kids, invented a sensor to better control acid rain, and marched with picket signs to stop violence. One even rode a lawnmower clear across the country to raise awareness about organ donation.
You’ve probably heard that problems can spiral out of control. In this book you’ll read about solutions that spiraled out of control. In the first year of Breakfast Bonanza, Zachary Ebers collected an astonishing 800 boxes of cereal for the hungry. “I was just doing what I could to help,” he says. “I didn’t know how successful we would be. It was kind of amazing.”
Their work was never easy. Josh Marcus had to overcome the urge to play basketball when backpacks needed to be stuffed with school supplies. Kristel Fritz struggled to convince appearance-conscious teenagers to donate their hair. Kate Klinkerman’s first attempt to keep oil from contaminating groundwater actually made the problem worse.
These kids are not perfect. They are not saints. They are not geniuses. But they represent a generation with the energy and ideas needed to fix our broken world.
Ideas from Generation Fix
Sprinkled throughout this book are smart, funny, and dead-serious solutions to world problems from kids all over the country. When I asked kids like you for their ideas, some so overflowed with suggestions that I could barely write fast enough. Others were skeptical, slumping back in their chairs, arms crossed. No one had ever asked them what should be done about homelessness, hunger, or health care. Eventually, they spoke, leaning forward, gesturing. In the end, every kid I interviewed offered an idea that made me think. Made me wonder. Made me hope.
Many proposed gun control, universal health insurance, curbside recycling, and smaller class sizes. But instead of picking these common suggestions, I chose the most quirky, creative ideas. After all, a hundred years ago, who would have believed that we’d have flying machines, cars powered by the sun, and medicines made from viruses?
Our Future
Many people say that kids are our future. Some people mean that the world will be better when you grow up and run our schools, governments, families, and businesses. I know we don’t have to wait that long. Generation Fix can bring us a better world right now.
—Elizabeth Rusch