How military kids are participating in Giving Tuesday Military
Military kids all over the country are participating in Giving Tuesday Military. (Hannah Grau)
Hannah Grau has wanted to make the world a better place since she was a little girl.
At 7 years old, she started her own nonprofit and raised more than $16,000 to help kids with cancer. In 2019 she participated in the first-ever Giving Tuesday Military challenge by spearheading efforts to make 3,000 paracord bracelets for her dad and other deployed troops in Syria and got her classmates involved in writing positive messages with sidewalk chalk around the school.
“Honestly, that was like one of the best things in the world,” she said on the episode 50 of The Spouse Angle podcast. “Ever since then I just have had a really big passion for doing things in the military community.”
Now, at 15, Grau is leading her friends and peers at school in a challenge to spread kindness in their communities this Dec. 1 as a youth ambassador for Giving Tuesday Military, a group started by three Military Spouse of the Year winners that puts a military spin on the annual holiday focusing on charity and giving. Their goal is to mobilize the military community to do 1 million acts of kindness.
Hannah Grau is a youth ambassador for Giving Tuesday Military and plans to spread messages of kindness around her school. (Hannah Grau)
In a Facebook group for the event, military spouses and family members stationed all over the world already have been posting their plans for the day — whether it’s writing letters to veterans or baking cookies for soldiers. Other suggestions include giving blood, donating to a local food bank or paying for the drink of the person behind you at Starbucks.
Brianna Cooley, another 15-year-old military kid and youth ambassador who joined Grau on the podcast, is also planning to spread kindness at her school, writing messages in highly trafficked areas, such as bus ramps and the lunch room. She said she will also leave sticky notes with kind messages around her Louisiana town.
In 2019, Brianna Cooley, center, sent 7,000 holiday cards to airmen in basic training for Giving Tuesday Military. This year she plans to spread kindness messages around her school and hometown. (Brianna Cooley)
And while these may seem like small things, Cooley said they can make a big difference: “Having a kinder world can slow the rate of suicides.”
It’s also helped her make connections in her community — something she and Grau said can sometimes be difficult in the military lifestyle, so it’s one more reason the teens said other military kids should get involved.
“Why wouldn’t you want to be part of something with such an amazing message anyway?” Grau said. “Spreading positivity — like you can’t go wrong with it.”