By Rebecca Pauley

You are walking along a busy city walkway out of the corner of your eye you spot a homeless man clad in rags, shaking a rusty can in his outstretched hand. After some consideration you decide to walk past the man and continue on with your day. You figure the man has made several regrettable choices that put him in this position, and perhaps someone else will give him money or food.

What if  a child appeared, instead of a man,hungry in a city street with nowhere to call home.

Zach Bonner, a fourteen-year-old philanthropist, made that choice and decided to help. Not just help, though. Along with collecting truckloads upon truckloads of food and supplies, he walked across the country to spread awareness of the Invisible Youth of America. Moreover, he gave these children what they needed most of all, hope.

I got the chance to interview Zach during his recent stop in Philadelphia about his many charitable projects through his Little Red Wagon Foundation, and about the movie highlighting his achievements, “Little Red Wagon.” I discovered that Zach truly changed the way thousands of Americans think and that he is an inspiration to all of us.

As kids, we depend on the adults to take care of the ongoing struggles America faces. But not Zach, who at six years old saw a TV news segment about a hurricane that left hundreds of people homeless in his home state of Florida, and decided to do something. 

“If we keep expecting everybody else to do their part then we ourselves don’t get involved and nothing will really ever get accomplished,” explained Zach.

by Taylor Campos

Nickelodeon kicks off summer with the premiere of “Bucket & Skinner’s Epic Adventures” on July 1st, 2011! Bucket and Skinner are two best buds, and your typical high-school freshman. These two frosh are always getting themselves into sticky situations, but seem to have a good sense of humor about it all.

Bucket and Skinner have three main goals in life: to stay friends forever, always be near a beach, and when they’re not near a beach, find a way to get to one. You’re not going to want to miss this live-action teen comedy!

Taylor Gray, the sensible teen who plays Bucket, shared with KidsNewsInc “It’s different and is going to grab the attention of many teens, especially ones who love the beach, or even those who have never seen the beach in real life”.

You’ll always catch Bucket and Skinner hanging out at the beach, shredding some waves, working at the local surf shop, or chasing after girls! Though there are many ‘surfettes’ (girl surfers) on the beach for Bucket and Skinner to drool over, Bucket (Taylor Gray) has his heart set on the class cutie, Kelly (Ashley Argota). Kelly is the brains and beauty of their school. In the premiering episode titled “Epic Election”, Bucket is determined to win Kelly’s heart.

Skinner (Dillon Lane), Buckets best friend, nominates him as class president for the sake of winning over the sincere adoration of Kelly. Little does Skinner know, nominating Bucket for class president forces him to campaign against the most popular jock in school, their rival, Aloe (Glenn McCuen).

Being that Bucket is extremely unprepared and inexperienced with the schools student council, he teams up with Kelly’s younger sister Piper (Tiffany Espensen). Piper is not your typical middle school student, she is always coming up with interesting and cunning schemes to get her way.