You're never too young to help others

By providing some physical help to others, 12-year-old Ahriel Porter is also providing some financial help as well.

Porter founded Little Helpers, a small organization that helps people throughout the year by shoveling snow, light house cleaning, mowing lawns and other chores. They do it for free -- but do accept donations, which the organization in turn uses to help purchase Christmas presents to others during the holidays.

"I've always liked helping other people and thought this was the easiest way to help others," Porter, who turns 13 on Wednesday, said.

This year, the organization sponsored nine children off the Angel Tree in the Cottonwood Creek Mall.

The club started raising money in July, although the idea was born years ago.

"I started doing things like this when I was in third grade, but this is the first year we could buy presents for kids," Porter said.

The Little Helpers raised more than $400 to buy Christmas presents. They had to make the money stretch as much as they could.

"Our goal was to raise $100, and we ended up with more than $400," Porter said.

She said her Little Helper helpers shopped primarily for teen-agers this holiday season, and one even got a snowboard.

"It was a little hard to buy a snowboard, but we managed a way to do it and still have money," she said. "We bought a lot of clothes and little toys they wanted."

Porter said there are 23 people who help, most of them younger kids "who tag along and help rake lawns." There are three core members -- Porter, Daniel Johnston and Dominique Gutierrez.

While they are helping others, the group members are also getting important civic lessons.

On Dec. 16, Johnston and Porter spoke about their club to the Wasilla Sunrise Rotary Club, and the Rotary club surprised them with a donation of $136.

This year the club enjoyed success, but already, Porter is looking forward to 2004. She said her goal was originally to raise $500, but that is changing.

"We wanted to raise $100 this year and we had four times that. Maybe $500 is too low for our goal," Porter said. "We'll have to try to raise even more than that."

Porter is a seventh-grader at Wasilla Middle School. She is an aspiring author, she said. She also loves the outdoors, including camping, fishing and small game hunting.

In October, Porter earned black belt in karate.

During her summer vacations, she volunteers with the Greater Wasilla Chamber of Commerce as an office assistant.

According to Porter, she has helped the chamber "keep current on file maintenance and membership renewal notifications" during her three years there.

Porter also has helped with the weekly chamber luncheons and with special projects like the city cleanup.