Their Christmas wish: that a homeless kid can go to camp

Four girls open craft sale table for a special gift.

By: Kara Fitzpatrick
   MONTGOMERY — Instead of focusing solely on their own holiday wish list, four township youngsters are working hard to insure that they can give a special present to a stranger.
   Village Elementary School fourth-graders Helen Taylor, Caroline Kuster and Kassidy Gardner and Orchard Hill Elementary School first-grader Jennifer Kuster have joined to form a group they have named Kids for Kids.
   Through the sale of handcrafted beaded jewelry and homemade baked goods, the girls are raising money for HomeFront, the nonprofit organization that acts as a resource for low-income and homeless families in the Mercer County.
   Specifically, the girls hope to raise $300 — enough money to send one underprivileged child to summer camp for a week. With $150 earned so far, they have high hopes of reaching their goal.
   "Most people don’t really get to go to summer camp," said Kassidy, explaining why the girls are determined to complete the project.
   "We’ve all been to summer camp and we love it," chimed in Caroline.
   Since the beginning of this month, the girls have been managing a small table at Belle Mead Hot Glass, the business owned by the Kuster sisters’ parents, where they work each Saturday and Sunday for about four hours offering colorful bracelets and fresh baked goods to customers.
   The girls hope to reach their goal by Christmas Eve. To do that, they said they have been working diligently, sometimes even during school recess, to make the jewelry needed to stock their table during the weekends.
   And their inventory has recently expanded to clocks and inlaid wooden jewelry since the donation of items made by the Kuster children’s grandfather, a woodworker.
   Sheila Kuster, mother of Caroline and Jennifer, said the idea first arose when she and her older daughter were discussing how to run a business.
   "(Caroline) wants to be a jeweler when she grows up," said Ms. Kuster. "We started talking about it, and I told her an important thing in running a business is giving to people."
   The timing, close to the holidays, was right for the girls to begin a charity effort.
   HomeFront, said Ms. Kuster, was an organization she was familiar with in the past. When she contacted HomeFront for information about what Kids for Kids could donate, it was suggested that earmarking the funds for a particular item could make the process more meaningful for the donating children. They unanimously chose to send a child to camp.
   When planning the concept, said Kassidy, "We made sure we weren’t just going to have fun, we were going to make jewelry."
   But fun is something that is not absent from their weekend sales.
   "They sit here," says Ms. Kuster while pointing to the corner booth at her shop that is surrounded by a bounty of brightly colored glass, "they listen to their music, they love it."
   In fact, the four girls seem to be relishing the formation of Kids for Kids so much that they are "already saying they don’t want it to end," said Ms. Kuster. She added that perhaps Kids for Kids will have a rebirth this summer.
   Belle Mead Hot Glass is open seven days a week from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. during December. Kids for Kids is present weekends from 11:15 a.m. to 3:30 p.m., but the goods are available for sale throughout the week, said Ms. Kuster.
   Contributions can also be sent directly to Home Front. For more information, call Belle Mead Hot Glass (908) 281-5516. More information on HomeFront is available at www.homefrontnj.org.