Ted Dreier

Back in 1998, at the age of 60, I founded the Children’s Kindness Network, a nonprofit with a mission to stop bullying before it begins, by teaching kindness values to young children.

My partner in this is “€œMoozie the Cow”, a talking robot cow that children fall in love with, especially when they are in the two-to-eight year old range.

It all started with puttering around in the garage for a couple years building a robotic talking cow. I discovered kids really paid attention to Moozie as she talked about spreading the milk of human kindness. I had also spent a year and a half visiting a young man in jail every week and recognized how decisions at a young age can be life-changing.

Seeing the impact of the cow on young children, I stepped back from the corporate world as a public speaker and dedicated this chapter of my life to reducing violence against children. Now, over 20,000 children a year come in contact with Moozie.

The Children’s Kindness Network uses a number of volunteers who are retired teachers, and other professionals. Those volunteering are making a difference in reaching young children with kindness values, as well as using their experience and skills from earlier days.

In this later stage in life, we can look back and see how we have been blessed. The greater our blessing, the greater is our challenge to give back and, in doing this, we have a reason to get out of bed in the morning … taking time to pay rent for being on the planet.

(To see Moozie in action, watch this Nashville public television story. Also see Moozie the Cow’s Facebook page.)