CEO 4 Teens

The first step we took in achieving our goal was to create a name for our non-profit. We wanted to call ourselves CEO 4 Teens which stands for "Creating Educational Opportunities for Teenagers" because that is our goal. We filed legally under a Colorado Non-Profit LLC, and we are closed to gaining a 501-C3 status with the IRS. Next, we created a simple donation letter that explained our cause and we sent it to friends and family. On this letter was also a pledge option where potential doners could pledge money against us (Brooks Dyroff and Kenny Haisfield), meaning for every amount of community service we did in our hometown of Boulder, Colorado, the doners would donate "x" amount of money. We thought this way we could help our own community as well as helping another community halfway across the world. We have made consecutive trips over the past summers of 2007 and 2008 to Ubud, Indonesia where we award the money we raised to deserving teenagers in the form of educational scholarships, microfinance loans, and job placement assistance. We promote other people who are interested in helping teenagers to initiate their own chapters of CEO 4 Teens in other countries so we can try to impact as many teenagers lives as possible. So far we have been amazed with the impact we (two regular teenagers from Boulder, Colorado) were able to make. We have raised over $25,000 in two years, sponsored 20 students, made small loans, and created bonds with people who live in a totally different culture than we do. We are forever thankful to those teenagers and families who let us help their sons or daughters help them make something of themselves through education. In our view, education is poverty's medicine.