It’s a lesson the Issaquah High School senior learned through his participation in Kids Coming Together (KCT), a Sammamish-based nonprofit that connects kids in grades three through eight with teen leaders in grades nine through 12 around shared interests and community service projects.

As participants describe the experience, KCT is a social organization with a volunteer component as well as a volunteer organization with a social component. Its events are a great way for kids of all ages to make a difference in their community and build friendships.

Deb Carmichael, KCT executive director sums up the mission this way: “If kids get into the car after one of our events, and they have something bubbling out of them they just can’t wait to share with a parent or family member, then it’s been a success.”

What causes that sort of enthusiasm? Each KCT event offers the chance to make a connection with real people or places.

“Maybe it’s learning that the books they are packaging will travel halfway around the world to other kids who are learning to read English,” says Carmichael. “Or maybe it’s just learning that they like the same movies as one of their teen leaders.”

The organization shoots for hosting multiple events each month. They have packaged donated books and toys and pulled together hygiene bags for those in need, including personal notes to recipients in the region and abroad. They have also facilitated pen pal letter-writing events and led cleanup efforts in area parks.

Kids Coming Together was founded in 2016. Carmichael came on board in 2019 and has worked with the organization’s Board of Directors and Youth Board to grow and expand the program’s reach. Teen board members devote their time helping expand KCT and in doing so develop critical leadership, teamwork, and decision-making skills. Last year, nearly 950 youth participants and more than 500 teen volunteers participated in events.

“The events team really tries to find new and interesting events that are both feasible and cater to the different interests of the kids,” says Shreya Ambekar, a senior at Eastlake High School and president of the KCT Youth Board. “We want a good balance between continuing past events that have been really popular and new opportunities to impact the community.”

All KCT events are free and are open to youth and teens from throughout the region. The group relies on donations and sponsorships to ensure that there are no barriers to participation.

Tanya Nair, also an Eastlake High School senior and the fundraising chairperson for KCT, has been involved with the nonprofit since she was in sixth grade.

“I found out about KCT through my mom, who saw a post on Facebook, and I attended off and on up until COVID,” Nair says. “When events started back up again, KCT’s role changed for me. I wasn’t just coming to have fun or fulfill volunteer requirements for high school, but to rebuild my social skills and reconnect with people in-person.

“The connections were so valuable to me because they were confidence building at a time I really needed it,” Nair adds. That — coming together and connecting — is the heart of KCT.

Events are structured to welcome everyone and create a low-risk environment for making new friends while working toward a common goal. Youth participants are organized into small pods, each with a set of teen leaders. As they work, teens and younger volunteers discover common interests and ideas. Carmichael says that about half of all youth and teen volunteers return to participate in other events after their initial experience. Seeing those repeat attendees become more comfortable interacting with each other and excited about their work helping others motivates Carmichael to keep growing the program.

Ishaan Agarwal, the Issaquah High student and KCT’s vice president of marketing, says he loves the recurring events and that he especially looks forward to LEGO Gifting. That’s when participants come together to build with and then bag up donated LEGOS, which are then sent to KidVantage and distributed to children in need.
Ishaan says he believes his experience with Kids Coming Together will benefit him far beyond his time with the organization.

“Being able to connect and interact with different ages and personalities will be important when I get to college and into the workforce,” he says.

Volunteer activities typically last 60 to 90 minutes and teen leaders are asked to arrive 30 minutes prior to an event. Volunteer opportunities in March will include a cookie decorating and poster making event to benefit the women in need at The Sophia Way.

Read more

Family opportunities to volunteer all year round

Volunteering with your kids

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I remember sleep training my 6-month-old daughter. I lay in bed clenching my teeth, feeling like her screams had gone on forever. Surely this was causing permanent brain damage — if not to her, then to me and her mother. Then I checked the clock. She’d been crying for twelve minutes.

That was the first of many times that I’ve found myself in a P.T.D.F. — “Parental Temporal Distortion Field.” For a while, I was convinced that I’d be changing her diapers forever. Then came the phase when I knew she’d never sleep in her own bed again. And, of course, there were those two weeks when she was doing that nervous blinking thing, which in my mind was the start of her lifelong struggle with Tourette Syndrome. These were all just warm-ups for her years as a snarky teenager, when it was clear that she’d never let me appear in public with her again.

I thought the good stuff would last forever, too. I was convinced that she’d always want me to chase her around the room pretending to be a monster. For the rest of our lives, I expected to be hoisting her up on my shoulders and making her laugh by talking like Donald Duck. Of course, I’d always be able to play catch with her, or get her to go feed the ducks with me. And most of all, she’d always be my little girl, with no interest in sex, drugs, or expensive hair products. Right? I mean, how could that ever change?

I think the P.T.D.F. exists because we and our kids really do exist on different timelines. By the time we start a family, the pace of change has slowed in our lives. From one year to the next, our evolution is incremental — thirty-something me wasn’t all that different from forty-something me. But over that same decade, my kids transformed from adorable little preschoolers to hormone-crazed adolescents with learner’s permits.

It’s difficult to maintain a close, intimate relationship with a creature that’s evolving like a shape-shifter in a science fiction movie. Your role in their life keeps changing. In the beginning, you’re their protector and provider. Then you’re their guide and mentor. For a while, you may be their oppressor and tormentor. Then, suddenly, you’re just a distant voice in their head as they venture out to make their way in the world.

Eventually, though, their timeline bends back toward ours, and things settle down. We and they develop a new kind of relationship, between two adults, and we get to shed the skins of those other roles and become something new to them. But just when we get used to this new equilibrium, it evaporates too. One day, you look in the mirror and you realize that you’re the one who’s changing. Now it’s your child’s turn to discover that nothing stays the same — not even you.

Last month, I went to visit my 98-year-old mom at the nursing facility where she’s winding down her long, full life. Every time I see her, she lets go of a few more memories and a few more pieces of our shared past – a few more layers of skin.

The day I arrived, she was alert, and she knew I was her son — though she wasn’t certain which one. The next morning, though, that awareness slipped away. She studied my face, trying to figure out if she knew me. When I told her who I was she nodded politely, as if I had said I was a new nurse’s aid, or the UPS guy.

Still, we spent a lovely morning sitting in a little garden under an orange tree. I would write something on a whiteboard, since she’d lost her hearing aids again, and she’d nod and smile, and say something completely unrelated. It reminded me of time spent with an infant — completely in the moment, with no goal or agenda other than to be in each other’s company.

After I wheeled her back to her room, I knelt down and kissed her on the cheek. Suddenly she looked into my eyes and smiled, then put her hand on my face. We stayed like that for a long time. In her eyes, I saw a look of recognition — not recognition of a son who had known her his entire life, but simply of another human being with whom she shared some sudden, miraculous, inexplicable bond of love. I’m guessing that’s how she looked at me the day I was born. I suspect that’s how I’ll look at my daughters when my own arc is nearly at its end.

More Dad Next Door columns

The monster in the basement 

Artificial unintelligence 

The importance of being earnest

The post Dad Next Door: The time warp of parenthood appeared first on Seattle's Child.

Writer, mom and avid family traveler Molly White, thinks it is — if parents spend time weighing out which of two travel perspectives fits their family best.

One approach: Creatively adapt your own personal bucket list of ambitious adventures to fit the needs of your family. “Creativity and compromise are key components here,” White says. “Realism is essential.”

The other approach: Acknowledge that travel with kids is a whole different ball game. Choose destinations and modes of travel with their needs and interests as your drivers. This travel mode may look less like adventure and more like “safe” resorts, packaged vacations, few transitions, longer stays and shorter travel times. The key here is to embrace the truth that traveling with kids is a life stage, while at the same time promising yourself a return to adventures later.

“I know families on both ends of the spectrum,” says White. “The point is, both approaches are valid.” Once you decide which approach is best for your family, don’t even look in the other direction.

“Do not get trapped in the-grass-is-always-greener comparisons or any kind of “should-ing” during or after your trip, and instead, acknowledge that travel with young kids is a huge feat,” White says. “Before you start planning, sit down and make peace with what works for your family right now.”

How do you determine which travel approach is best for your clan? Pondering these questions may help:

• What is your budget and what compromises are you willing to make?
• What is your family ready for from a mental health point of view?
• What do you aim to get out of traveling together?
• What will feed your soul? Theirs?
• What type of travel will feel worth the effort in the end?
• What kind of travel will make you feel refreshed (and not regretful) when you get home?

Perhaps most importantly, ask yourself whether now is the time for family travel given the costs in stress, time and money.

“Be realistic. The packing and preparation can easily outweigh the benefits,” White says.”Even for the most adventurous, spontaneous and easygoing families, good planning and careful consideration are what make a successful trip.”

If your family is ready to roll (or fly), we invite you to “Go West!” to any of the destinations highlighted in our March/April 2025 issue of Seattle’s Child Magazine.

We’ve got destinations to meet a variety of adventure levels in the western U.S. and beyond, from a short-ish drive to San Juan Island to the way, way west of Hawaii to adventures thousands of miles away.

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