TeamChildren today has successfully launched its Summer Youth Development Program, teaching six high school students— Afton Woodring, 16, Joey Pacholski, 13, Prachi Taneja, 16, William Lehman, 19, Ryan Fields, 20, and Zach Smeltz, 15—how to prevent the pervasive effects of poverty on the growth and development of children through TeamChildren's early childhood educational program.

Brillkids.com, a Hong Kong based software company, and AWE Learning in Chester, PA, have donated more than $500,000 worth of educational software designed to significantly increase the cognitive growth of developmentally challenged children in academics. Brillkids' Little Reader and Little Math enable children to learn how to spell, read, count, and do math and AWE's child safe web browser Elf enables children to surf the web to learn anything from science, technology, engineering, math, history, to geography.

"Most low income children start preschool, kindergarten or even first grade with an experiential deficit in neurological development, math, and vocabulary," says president and founder Robert Toporek. "Our early childhood development program combats this critical issue."

TeamChildren's volunteers will master the use of the learning software, research computer recipients, and lead workshops for parents that have received our software to maximize the benefits of the programs. This will serve as a model for classes for early childhood development teachers in the future.

"We are going places we've never gone, doing things we've never done, and are producing unprecedented results," says Toporek.

To raise the $75,000 needed to fund these efforts, Eric Bai, a 19-year-old New York University rising sophomore, and Samantha Schwartz, a 21-year-old rising senior at Penn State University, are interning to spearhead this effort. They are managing the volunteers and reaching out for support from foundations, area executives and previous donors—more than 3,000 people that have donated money and/or equipment.

Children and their families can spend more time together in the safety of their homes as a learning environment researching, doing their homework, applying to college acceptance and scholarships, finding jobs and moving forward.

While many other teens are sleeping late or home playing video games, TeamChildren's volunteers will be learning valuable skills that will serve them and their communities—skills like goal setting, teamwork, communication, leadership, and most importantly, transforming the growth and development of humanity. These teens are making a difference that matters.

Photo Caption: Eric Bai, Afton Woodring, Joey Pacholski, Prachi Taneja, William Lehman, Ryan Fields, Samantha Schwartz, and Zach Smeltz gather for their first day as part of the Summer Teen Development Program.