How we got our name: After Grandma died, Charlie said there's "a little bit of happy" in this, because for the last six months she wasn't living, she was suffering, so we decided on the name A Little Bit of Happy - because we want to provide kids who are caregiving "a little bit of happiness" by knowing they aren't alone. | Note - we added the organization name of Kids are Caregivers Too in 2018.
​‘A Little Bit of Happy’ - Kids are Caregivers too is a start-up family advocacy project by us, Charlie and A.J. Poole with the help of our family. Our full time caregiving roles started when we were in elementary school when we were 9 and 10 years old. Currently we are students at McLean High School in Virginia.

We helped care for our grandmother at home during the last years of Alzheimer’s disease; she died in June of 2015. As advocates for kids who are caregivers, our mission is to bring 'a little bit of happiness' to the lives of caregiving youth.

If you are a kid caregiving for someone with Alzheimer’s or anything else, like a parent with a debilitating disease, mental illness or addiction, we know this is probably one of the toughest times of your life. You are not alone. During our caregiving days, it was like nobody understood, our friends, our teachers, nobody knows what it's like to live with someone who needs a lot of help unless you've been there. Nobody understands a caregiver like caregivers.

​We created this website so people can understand the problem and we work with other organizations to advocate for awareness and create solutions for Caregiving Youth in the United States.
The Catholic Health Association of the United States published an article featuring our family and youth caregiving. ​'Children Who Give Care are Overlooked' - This article provides an overview of Caregiving Youth in the United States. This article was republished by The Mensa Bulletin.
We were invited to give a Keynote Speech in 2017 about our experience caring for our grandmother at the American Association of Caregiving Youth's National Conference in Boca Raton Florida. We were humbled and excited to accept this honor. We didn't know where to start.

The importance of telling our story as clearly as possible was important to us.

We enlisted the help of a TedMed Speaking Coach named Peter Botting. Peter helped us shape our message, communicate for impact, and made sure we practiced our speech enough to truly make a meaningful connection with our audience, and deliver a message they remembered. We are forever grateful to him.

We first gave the speech in 2017. We updated the speech and gave it again in February of 2020. We continue to seek opportunities to talk about our experience and caregiving youth issues overall.
We updated the speech. Kids are Caregivers Too | Alzheimer's Caregiving Speech | Brain Bowl 2020 | Boca Raton, Florida​ | 
PRESS RELEASE 2-10-2020
2017 Speech | American Association of Caregiving Youth Conference
​Charlie Poole, age 14 | A.J. Poole age 13
2020 Speech | Brain Bowl, Boca Raton
​Charlie Poole, age 17 | A.J. Poole age 15
Working with Peter Botting via Skype from the U.K.
The complete transcript of the speech ​can be found here.
2017 | Working with Peter Botting on the Caregiving Youth Speech
2020 | Working with Peter Botting on the Caregiving Youth Speech
A.J. Poole 'This I Believe Speech' | On Caregiving for His Grandmother | Landon School  & Holton-Landon Leadership Symposium 2019 | Working on Awareness and Advocacy for Caregiving Youth Issues 
We advocate for and communicate our goals for Caregiving Youth wherever the opportunity arises. We would love to have other kids join us!

We are both busy with sports and school, so we try to include caregiving youth issues whenever we have relevant assignments to include information on the issue. We also gave a speech in Middle School on the subject for The American Association of Caregiving Youth National Conference. We are also available for public speaking engagements on the issue as time allows.

The number one issue we are advocating for now is to create a way for kids/parents to apply for Service Hour Credit. We would like to have this done by the end of this year - 2020.