Does your child have a soft spot for his or her animal friends? Does he or she regularly help care for pets, volunteer with animals, or rescue abandoned or stray animals when they come along? He or she may be eligible for an Animal Hero Kids Award.

KidsHelpAnimals.com is looking for children who regularly treat animals humanely and can serve as an example for other kids. According to the site, helping animals is one of the best things we can do together to help make children more compassionate, loving, law-abiding, and good citizens overall. “Children trained to extend justice, kindness, and mercy to animals become more just, kind and considerate in their relations to each other.”

Animal Hero Kids Award recipients have done some amazing things. Some children have effectively campaigned and won a ban against fox and coyote penning. Others have helped direct turtle hatchlings away from motor vehicle traffic as they traveled to the sea. A few award recipients even rescued a battered and violently beaten abandoned dog, who is now safe and sound.

If you think your child qualifies for an Animal Hero Kids Award, contact Humane Educators Reaching Out at their online form today. Who knows? Your child could be the next Animal Hero and entered to win this year’s $5,000 college scholarship.

And if you’d like to implement teaching your child (or your classroom) about the importance of being a humane citizen, the site also contains dozens of helpful resources to get you started. Several different organizations that provide education and training programs and other resources can be found here. And at this link, you can find plenty of books, videos, websites, and other resources to use in your home or classroom, including emergency phone numbers to keep on hand when assisting pets, stray animals, and other creatures in need.

Of course, teaching children to be humane citizens isn’t rocket science, and parents shouldn’t stress as to how they do it as long as they make a point to do it in the first place. We can use the books and videos we already have to spawn discussions about whether or not the media was humane or cruel to animals—“Was it right for the humans to use Batty for experiments? How come?”

Just by talking to our kids, helping them think critically and evaluate the information they are given, and making sure that we model kind, humane behavior, we can provide them with a the first big step in being responsible, kind citizens.