Charitable giving on rise with teens, young adults

LOOKING BEYOND "ME": Carolina Correa, left, major-gifts officer and Young Leaders Circle manager, sorts books from a United Way of Rhode Island book drive with Ayanna Mason, a senior at Johnson & Wales University who is a Young Leaders Circle member and United Way ambassador. / PBN PHOTO/MICHAEL SALERNO
LOOKING BEYOND "ME": Carolina Correa, left, major-gifts officer and Young Leaders Circle manager, sorts books from a United Way of Rhode Island book drive with Ayanna Mason, a senior at Johnson & Wales University who is a Young Leaders Circle member and United Way ambassador. / PBN PHOTO/MICHAEL SALERNO

Carolina Correa’s passion for philanthropic work began as a teenager.

She helped raise money and awareness for causes in high school, her swim team and the Boys & Girls Club, for example. She had mentors who instilled in her the importance of getting behind a cause she believed in. The logic of people banding together to create change always resonated.

But it was when she went back to her native Colombia during the summer before college that she met people with cleft palates. Their situation made an impact on her and spurred her not just to give to this cause, but to go one step further, and start a chapter of Operation Smile at her college back in the United States.

The fact that a cleft-palate surgery through Operation Smile cost just $250 and took two hours was incredible to Correa.

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“I was really passionate about what I was raising money for,” she said, through bake sales or other means, “not so much how much money was raised, but about the impact those dollars could have. A smile is universal. And $250 to give a smile to a kid? I think a smile is everything.”

Creating smiles where she can appeals to college freshman Zoe Schloss of Barrington as well.

Schloss was born into a family with a personal cause and a personal mission.

Her older brother Max passed away from Tay-Sachs disease, a fatal brain condition, just before he turned 2. The family set up the Max Schloss Foundation and an endowed fund at Hasbro Children’s Hospital in Providence. The fund supports the Max All Star Kids Program at Hasbro, a palliative-care initiative for children with chronic conditions and their families.

“Every year on his birthday, Mom and I volunteer and bring toys to all the kids,” in that area of the hospital, said Schloss, a part of the foundation work she couldn’t participate in until she turned 16, she said. “Sometimes we will go and spend more time with kids who are alone.”

Her senior-year project, Miles for Max, a fundraising 5K, was a learning experience fueled by love for her brother, and for her family.

Schloss said the things she learned in planning the event last year were invaluable in terms of organization and multitasking.

“There were really a lot more steps involved than I thought,” she said, and remembers the undertaking as inspiring, with community support. More than $1,300 was raised for Hasbro Children’s Hospital, with about 100 donating online and 100 at the 5K itself, she said.

Both Correa and Schloss said that though they did include their charity work in their college application materials, their reasons for getting involved in philanthropy go much deeper. These causes, for them, struck a chord.

This awareness and a passion for giving among younger people is certainly backed up by research.

Fidelity’s charitable arm released a study this fall, “The Future of Philanthropy,” looking at more than 3,000 charitable donors across the country. The study revealed a growing trend: millennials – those aged 18-34 in 2015 – driving the future of charitable giving. As opposed to baby boomers, ages 52-70, for instance, more millennials are equally concerned about domestic and international issues. Millennials have been more influenced by technological advances in giving, such as making donations online.

The passion and ability to access information may be only part of the picture as to why more young people are getting involved with charity. The practice also teaches real-life skills to build upon.

College freshman Zachary Librizzi of Warwick has Type-1 diabetes. With his family, he’s raised more than $1 million for diabetes research with a golf tournament each year for the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation.

Now Librizzi speaks to crowds at the golf event each year – honing up on his public speaking – and has taken a leadership role with a fundraising walk he started, which has raised $75,000 so far.

In addition to reaching out to and visiting newly diagnosed local children, Librizzi has learned from the disease itself, as well. “I’ve learned resilience,” he said. “I don’t let disease define me as a person. It’s taught me responsibility, like how to eat healthy and manage my health.”

For Correa, meanwhile, philanthropy has become her full-time way of life now.

At 25, she is a major-gifts officer at United Way of Rhode Island, and, as manager of its Young Leaders Circle group, helps other young people get involved in fundraising and volunteering, too. It’s the largest young-professional group in Rhode Island, with more than 1,500 members from every community raising a half-million dollars for various organizations so far.

“It’s not easy to constantly ask for money,” said Correa. “But how it impacts is what I love, like with affordable housing. The money we raise goes on beyond me.”

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