Welcome to the January 2005 special Absolutely Incredible Kid Day® edition of Camp Fire USA's Youth Connection! This newsletter is brought to you by members of the National Youth Advisory Cabinet (YAC) and other youth around the country.

We welcome any feedback or thoughts you have about the newsletter because, after all, it is created for youth by youth and we want it to be as useful as possible. If you would like to share feedback or ideas, please contact Youth Connection.

Absolutely Incredible Kid Day®
This March will mark Camp Fire USA's 9th annual Absolutely Incredible Kid Day®, a national call to action asking adults to write letters of encouragement to America's youth. Absolutely Incredible Kid Day® (AIKD) is an amazing opportunity for all of us to write letters to children expressing to them our love and support. AIKD is held on the third Thursday of each March. Camp Fire USA sponsors this event in its quest to honor the hundreds of thousands of children involved in Camp Fire USA programs as well as every other kid in America.

The National Youth Advisory Cabinet is asking the older youth of Camp Fire USA to work with your councils to promote Absolutely Incredible Kid Day® in and around your communities. Details about the YAC endorsed project can be found in the AIKD How-To Guide 2005 on pages 13 and 14. Please contact your council for information about this project and to find out how you can get involved with absolutely incredible kids.

If you have questions or need some ideas of ways to get involved with Absolutely Incredible Kid Day®, e-mail yac@campfireusa.org. Included in this Youth Connection are some ideas from other councils on ways to get involved with AIKD and also some words of wisdom from some of the YAC members.

The Importance of Absolutely Incredible Kid Day®
The importance of Absolutely Incredible Kid Day® is two-fold.

1. For obvious reasons, it is important to express to a young child how much you love them and are proud of them. These letters are personal and are a way to share feelings that are often hard to express in spoken words. This form of positive reinforcement can be held onto for years to come and has the potential to have an amazing impact on a child.
2. The other incredibly important aspect of Absolutely Incredible Kid Day® is the publicity for Camp Fire USA programs. AIKD is an excellent way to encourage kids to become caring and confident youth and is an even better way to get exposure for Camp Fire USA in your community. Make sure to tell people about Camp Fire USA as an organization as well as about AIKD. Word of mouth publicity and advertising can be effective when approaching leaders in your community about participating in the event.

Learn More Online!
The Absolutely Incredible Kid Day® Web site has everything you ever want to know about Absolutely Incredible Kid Day®—and more!

Here's what you'll find on the AIKD Web site:

• AIKD message points and frequently asked questions,
• ideas for local organizations and corporations to get involved,
• letter-writing tips, sample starting sentences and sample letters written by real parents
• downloadable AIKD stationery, and
• celebrity letters written by actors, musicians, athletes, public officials and more!

Viisit the Absolutely Incredible Kid Day® Web site today and share the link with everyone you know!

Be Creative
The date for Absolutely Incredible Kid Day® 2005 is Thursday, March 17. In some parts of the country this falls during spring break and other times that make it hard to schedule events. Don't be discouraged if you aren't able to plan for things to take place on March 17.

This conflict with spring break schedules is often an obstacle for Camp Fire USA Heart of the Hawkeye Council in Des Moines, Iowa. Absolutely Incredible Kid Day® usually falls during some part of the council's Spring Break Day Camp program, so activities the day of the event are somewhat limited. The council holds AIKD activities for the youth that are in the day camp programs on AIKD, but they also put a lot of energy into simply making the greater Des Moines community aware of AIKD. Some of their advertising methods include:

• sending out a press release
• sending out mailings
• asking youth organizations, faith-based communities and schools write letters
• giving out information to Camp Fire USA program leaders
• passing out stickers and stationary at youth organization meetings

Feel free to think outside the box when coming up with ways to advertise and participate in Absolutely Incredible Kid Day® efforts. Creative methods of advertising are usually more memorable and have a more lasting impact compared to some of the traditional methods.

Making the News in Lakeland, Florida
"Camp Fire USA Sunshine Council in Lakeland, Florida, makes sure that they get the word out about Absolutely Incredible Kid Day®. Every morning a local news station does a "mug of the morning" segment, during which they feature a different coffee mug each day. We sent an AIKD mug to that news station with a press release, and our mug was featured on the show. Hundreds of thousands of people heard that morning about the annual letter writing campaign.

"We asked an Honorable City Commissioner and a well-known local news reporter to speak to a group of 450 high school students about the importance and effectiveness of Absolutely Incredible Kid Day®. The high school students had an assignment that afternoon in their English classes to write letters of encouragement to a younger person. Those letters, along with letters written by fraternities and sororities at a local college, were delivered to an elementary school and passed out to students.

"The news reporter then interviewed a high school student who had received a letter of support as a young kid as well as the local Executive Director of the Sunshine Council on the importance of Absolutely Incredible Kid Day®. The interview was featured that evening on the five o' clock and six o' clock news. Thousands more people heard about the amazing efforts of Camp Fire USA and the AIKD project.

"The Sunshine Council knows how empowering Absolutely Incredible Kid Day® letters can be and wants all youth to experience that feeling. They have made special efforts to make AIKD a community-wide event and have worked diligently to increase the awareness of the project."

—Shane McLaughlin , Sunshine Council

Know YOUR Camp Fire USA AND Absolutely Incredible Kid Day®!
1) For the first time ever, Camp Fire USA is sharing its birthday with Absolutely Incredible Kid Day®. How old will Camp Fire be on March 17, 2005?
a) 117
b) 95
c) 73
d) 52

2) What is the title of the book containing real letters written for Absolutely Incredible Kid Day®?
a) Letters to the Future
b) Messages of Hope
c) Words From the Heart
d) Letters From the Heart

Answers: 1) b, 2) d

Check back next month for the next issue of Camp Fire USA's Youth Connection. If you would like to receive subsequent issues by e-mail, please contact Youth Connection.