It’s become a tradition around here that each year in November, Colorado Parent shares the stories of Colorado kids making an impact in their school, their neighborhood, the community, or the world. It’s one of my favorite articles of the year.

Beginning in the summer, we ask you, our readers, our clients, and our community partners to help us find the kids to feature. The response is always exciting—Colorado is home to so many amazing kids. They are change-makers who see a need in the world around them and take a step to help out.

Producing the article is not without difficulty though; it’s nearly impossible for us to narrow down the kids to feature in the magazine—we can only include a couple each year. So, we strive to include kids of different ages, participating at different levels, and supporting a variety of causes. Inevitably that means we can’t feature all the kids we hear about.

This year’s kids are doing everything from helping to feed the homeless and raise money for medical treatments, to reaching out to peers struggling with suicidal thoughts. Read their stories beginning here. Some of them have started their own organizations, while others lend their time to local causes. What we’ve heard from each of them is that the most important thing is to do something.

It may seem like you have to commit a lot of time to make a difference, but that’s really not true. Small things can have a big impact. That’s why we’ve chosen to celebrate kindness in our Fun and Activities column this month. Here, you’ll find a collection of simple, but impactful deeds that children of any age can accomplish.

Encouraging these small daily acts can reinforce lessons in empathy and sharing, and may inspire your child to take on a bigger volunteer project. You might even be nominating them for next year’s Kids Making a Difference article, making our selection process that much harder. But we’re OK with that.