A few raindrops of hope. That's all it took, says Cynthia Davis, to water the tender plants in a junior youth group she animated last year. "They didn't need a downpour," says the Mountain View, California, Baha’i. Through their time together and the example of adults a realization grew within these young people, she reflects.

What’s the first step in becoming a good steward of God’s creation? For a number of young people at Bosch and Louhelen Baha’i Schools in October, it was experiencing the outdoors firsthand, studying Baha’i writings on preserving nature, and exploring how spiritually conscious action can help build a more just world.

At an age when burgeoning intellectual, spiritual and physical powers become accessible to them, they are being given the tools needed to combat the forces that would rob them of their true identity as noble beings and to work for the common good. — Universal House of Justice, Ridvan 2010

They persevered, endured disappointment and bad weather, and patiently built bonds of trust. And by the end of a four-day intensive junior youth session in December 2010 at the Native American Baha’i Institute, several junior youths and three animators came away with hard-won insights into what service is all about.

Sina Sabet tallies the hours in a week junior youths are exposed to negative influences. At school. On TV, Internet and radio. In the streets. In some dysfunctional homes. It all adds up. Where's the balance?

Amir Haghiri wanted to serve by starting a junior youth group. Turns out the group's very existence has been a service to its Dallas, Texas, neighborhood. To the young people in it as well, including his brother. And to Haghiri.

For over a century the American Baha'i community has been offering spiritual education to Baha'i children. These days, Baha'is across the country and around the world are partnering with friends and neighbors to offer these classes to children of all backgrounds.

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Rebecca Bonner, 9, has memorized enough Baha’i prayers to earn herself a shiny, golden badge that features the globe and has the words, “Unity of Mankind” resting proudly on the North Pole.