On today's show we visit Simone Puccinelli, the Founder and President of Simone's Kids.  In our Kid Hero segment, Bruce Gale talks with 14-year old Drew Schore about his organization, Drew’s Drawers.

Children in poor countries face many barriers to accessing an education. Some are obvious – like not having a school to go to – while others are more subtle, like the teacher at the school not having had the training needed to effectively help children to learn.

• Around the world 59 million children of primary school age are being denied an education, and almost 65 million adolescents are without access to a secondary school.

• Conflict and natural disasters have disrupted the education of 75 million children.

• In one of three countries, less than three quarters of teachers are trained to national standards, resulting in 130 million children enrolled in school who are not even learning the basics.

Today we take a look at the orphans in Uganda.  For many kids around the world, the future is unclear.  Children who grow up without basic needs have little hope. Without hope, these children are left with no future. The way children grow and develop today will heavily impact the future of our world. Hundreds of thousands of children in Uganda face this reality.

A proper education provides children with the foundation necessary to bring hope and change to their environment, but few Ugandan orphans have this opportunity.

Hunger also makes learning difficult if not impossible, and many orphans in Uganda do not know when they will get to eat again.

And this brings us to today's charity...

Simone’s Kids, a nonprofit in Cartersville, GA is working to save children from the effects of poverty.  They operate a primary and secondary school in Nakaseke, Uganda for orphans and vulnerable children.  @simoneskids

Simone’s Kids started in a small dorm room during the founder’s sophomore year of college. The need came through an email about a small group of children that were no longer going to be able to attend school because of poverty. The school needed $500 to stay open or the children would be back working on the streets. Simone Puccinelli, started a project called Simone’s Kids in order to save this school. After visiting the children several times, Simone fell in love with the children and their heart for learning, and there Simone’s Kids was born. Simone’s Kids takes care of orphaned and poverty stricken children that are unable to afford an education, but desire to excel in life. They individually sponsor children through our Primary and Secondary School.

Simone Puccinelli talks to us about the work Simone’s Kids is doing for these children in Uganda.

On today's Kid Hero segment, Bruce talks with 14 year old Drew Schore, who founded the organization "Drew's Drawers" which donates clothes to support the Harold Robinson Foundation, a nonprofit that provides the funding and resources to send Los Angeles's less fortunate children to camp, in a safe and nurturing environment, far away from the stress that most of them face on a daily basis. The camp is called Camp Ubuntu which is a South African word that describes everything as positive as it can be.

Much of the fundraising comes from "Pedal on the Pier", which typically raises over $1 mil. each year in Santa Monica.