Michelle from South Carolina entered her 13-year-old daughter Kimberly in the TDmonthly Magazine Charitable Kid Contest without Kimberly's knowledge. She thought the contest was perfect for her daughter, who has had a big and giving heart since she was a young child, but did not want her to become too excited about winning the chance to give away 100 Schoenhut My First Piano IIs to local charities and needy children. When Kimberly discovered she was a finalist and later a winner, she was thrilled! Immediately, the family started thinking about which children should receive the gifts. Please check back this month for updates on their plans and when the first giveaway will take place!

Here’s what Michelle wrote about her daughter, and why she thinks Kimberly was the perfect choice for the TDmonthly Charitable Kid Contest:

Kimberly has always been a very giving child. Even as a toddler she willing[ly] shared her cookies — sometimes wet ones from her mouth! In elementary school she participated in every collection drive they had and made sure she saved extra money to buy presents from the Santa’s Workshop to give to her family.  Kimberly has helped organize a book drive for a literacy group in our area and then volunteered with some of her friends to work at the fundraising book sale, opening the doors for customers and handing out the fliers.

More recently Kimberly has participated in many church activities, including making Birthday Party in a Bag gift bags that included items for making a spaghetti supper and birthday cake with icing along with the plates, cups, napkins, streamers and balloons. These bags are given to the children that come to our Wednesday night programs who have celebrated a birthday during the week. 

She helped raise money to feed a hungry child for three months while participating in the 30-Hour Famine. She did this on her own because she was going to be out of town when our youth group planned to raise money for this event. She is usually one of the first to volunteer to help the youth minister with activities involving the younger children and was chosen to help plan a county-wide youth event with several local churches.

Kimberly is very active with our homeschool group — she works almost every month at one of our Moms’ Support meetings providing free child care for moms that need this ministry. A few months the moms took up a love offering but she usually gives a portion of the money back to our church and saves the rest for the future.

Kimberly is caring both to humans and our furry friends as well. She has helped care for many rescued kittens and on one occasion jumped between two dogs who were attacking a kitten we had just recently brought home. We have two adopted dogs from the Humane Society and Kimberly cares for both of them plus two cats, a fish and a frog. She is saving her money to be a veterinarian some day.

Here is an example of the pianos Kimberly will soon be giving away:

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My First Piano II by SCHOENHUT PIANO COMPANY

Schoenhut's bright red, wooden, 25-key tabletop is the perfect choice for a toddler's first piano. Both fun and educational, it is an ideal instrument for developing eye-hand coordination and encouraging musical creativity. Chromatically tuned, the lovely chimelike notes are produced by little hammers striking precision-ground, German steel music rods. The tone never changes nor will the piano ever need tuning. Schoenhut's patented Learning System, with its play-by-color teaching method, makes playing simple and fun. A removable color strip fits behind the keys to guide small fingers from chord to chord. The chart also works on adult keyboards, since keys on Schoenhut toy pianos are of corresponding width. This teaches children proper finger placement from the very beginning. The accompanying Songbook contains a collection of familiar tunes. This Learning System has been specially designed to build a child's confidence and develop basic playing skills. It comes in red and white. Launch date: 2005.
- This model was Schoenhut's best seller for 2010. It was also the model given away by TDmonthly's Charitable Kid, Kimberly (then 14) of South Carolina -- 100 times over! As a reward for her charity and careful selection of institutions to receive the toy pianos, Kimberly was given a number of other high-quality Schoenhut instruments, many of which she shared with her younger sisters.

Writer's Bio: ALISON MAREK is an award-winning writer, director and cartoonist whose work has been published by Fairchild Publications and DC Comics (Piranha Press), broadcast on Showtime and other cable networks, and viewed worldwide in film festivals. See her short films and print work on www.alisonmarek.com. Watch her nefarious villains in the web series www.MuggsMovers.com. Get inspired by her cartoons "Daily ARFFirmations to Unleash Your Inner Fido" at www.ARFFirmations.com. Phew! And then ...  Read more articles by this author