Causes: Children & Youth, Education, Mental Health, Primary & Elementary Schools, Scouting

Mission: Kids on the Block performs fourteen different prevention topics on health, social, safety and disability issues. These topics include: Preventing Drug and Alcohol Abuse, Healthy Choices: Reducing Childhood Obesity, Preventing School Violence and Bullying, Appreciating Cultural Differences, Preventing Pysical and Sexual Abuse, Understanding Physical Disabilites, and many more. The Kids on the Block model provides classrooms of K-6th grade students with specially trained volunteer puppeteers who lead scripted educational shows regarding a particular topic, after which the puppets and students participate in an open question and answer session. Children engage directly with the child-size puppets, both during the show and afterwards, by letters and email.A Kids on the Block performance is an unforgettable educational experience. The "kids" vividly and effectively model relationships between people through frank and often-humorous communications of facts and feelings between the puppet characters and the audience. The Kids on the Block in Portland is the largest of all programs operating in the United States, with the most puppeteers serving the most children per year. Kids on the Block benefits from a committed and stable volunteer force of over 70 specially trained puppeteers who contribute over 100 hours per year.Kids on the Block came to Portland in 1986 under the auspices of the Junior League of Portland, with assistance from the Arc of Multnomah County and Access Oregon. Since 1991 the Kids on the Block program in Portland, Oregon is its own independently operated 501(c)(3) nonprofit educational program.