Kate Atwood, second from right, was 6 years old when her mother was diagnosed with breast cancer.

When I was 11, my father died. I didn’t know anyone my age who had lost a parent. I thought that only people who were my parents’ age lost a parent.

I certainly didn’t know Kate Atwood then, but I’m happy to know her now. Atwood’s mom died from breast cancer when she was 12. Atwood saw the need for an organization to bring bereaved children together to let them know they’re not alone.

In 2003, she started Kate’s Club, a group that empowers kids after the loss of a parent or sibling. Social, recreational and emotional support programs help them cope with their loss and remember that even though they just had to grow up fast, they’re still kids at heart.

I’ll interview Atwood on CNN.com Live at 3:30 p.m. ET Friday, May 9, right before Mother’s Day. What questions would you like to hear? Submit questions as comments below or, better yet, turn on your camera and send a question on video to iReport.com.

Director Spike Lee speaks to Generation Engage members during a Get Engaged Forum.

How do you mobilize young people this election season? We hear it over and over again: “The apathy!” “The sloth!” “The lack of civic engagement!”

Generation Engage wants to tackle these issues from the bottom up. Adrian Talbott and Justin Rockefeller came from high-powered political families and went on to graduate from fancy universities. But, they actually don’t think that’s where the change is going to happen. They are interested in the 51 percent of 18-29-year-olds who are off college campuses or didn’t even go to college.

They started Generation Engage three years ago, before all the hoopla of this historic campaign cycle. By hiring locals to set up satellite community outreach programs, the organization sets up politically non-partisan meetings on topics most appropriate to a particular area. But Talbott and Rockefeller don’t want to dissolve like many “get-out to vote” organizations. They call themselves an initiative for “civic engagement,” and say they want to remind people that democracy will continue well after November’s presidential election.

Update: Watch the CNN.com Live interview

Tyler Lyson's interest in fossil discovery led him to help create a research foundation.

Lots of kids are into dinosaurs. Tyler Lyson says he just never grew out of it. He grew up in rural North Dakota and says fossils were more ubiquitous there than in other places in the U.S.

But in 1999, he didn’t find just any fossil; he discovered something jaw-dropping: a 25-foot-long dinosaur, complete with skin and all. Lyson’s find was an Edmontosaurus he named Dakota. The 65 million-year-old mummified dinosaur was eventually unearthed with Lyson standing by in 2004.

Lyson is now the co-founder of the Marmarth Research Foundation in his hometown. The foundation is creating a museum and outreach programs to give volunteers hands-on field and lab work with fossils. While getting his doctorate at Yale, Lyson wants to make sure that other kids don’t grow out of their fascination with the extinct.

Update: Watch the CNN.com Live interview

Rachel Rosenfeld, 17, founded the R.S. Rosenfeld school in Srah Khvav village in Siem Reap province, Cambodia.

During Rachel Rosenfeld’s junior year in high school, the unexpected happened. She developed a stomach condition that kept her out of school the whole year. While recovering, her sense of purpose changed after reading a New York Times article on the plight of young Cambodians.

The article followed a 17-year-old girl who most likely would have been forced into prostitution if she didn’t go to school. The problem was that there were no schools in the girl’s village. Rachel, now 17 herself, remembers how the story inspired her to write letters asking for donations so the girl could go to school.

After hundreds of letters were forwarded organically across the country, Rachel received $52,000 in donations. In December 2007, she attended the opening of the R.S. Rosenfeld School in Cambodia’s Siem Reap province. Now, 300 students there can get an education thanks to funding from an unexpected place.

Update: Watch the CNN.com Live interview

Zachary Peskin, right, and his brother Adam discuss the Special Business Partners Program with a retailer.

It’s Autism Awareness Month, but for people who have autism or live with someone who does, they are aware every day. Zachary Peskin, 16, decided not only to be aware but also to be active.

Zachary’s older brother, Adam, is autistic. After years of watching others serve Adam, Zachary noticed that his brother’s greatest joy came from helping others. It was the little things: from setting the table to setting up events at the local community center. Last year, it hit Zachary — if his brother could give back a little, then the opportunity for the developmentally disabled community to give back collectively was great.

Last year, Zachary started Special People Helping Others, or SpPHO. Group members attend SpPHO-sponsored activities and community events to sell 3-for-1 Bracelets. It’s called the 3-for-1 because for every bracelet sold, three causes can be helped: SpPHO, Meals on Wheels and Doctors Without Borders, an international medical and humanitarian aid organization. SpPHO is a group that helps people such as Zachary’s brother by letting them help others.

Update: Watch the CNN.com Live interview

Taylor hopes to send 30,000 teddy bears to children in hospitals across the U.S. by September

If you’ve been in the hospital or had a family member or friend there, you know how lonely and scary it can be. Once visiting hours are over, the levity and the hugs stop. But, if it were up to Taylor Crabtree, the hugs would last all night.

When Taylor was 7 years old she started TayBear. Like many little girls, Taylor and her friends made hairclips to sell for extra money. She didn’t just go out and blow the money, though. Instead, she used it to buy teddy bears for kids in the hospital with cancer and chronic blood diseases.

Taylor’s goal was to buy 50 bears for her local hospital. But, she couldn’t resist the letters from kids (and kids at heart) asking her for more bears to hug at night. Now, at 17, Taylor has donated nearly 21,000 teddy bears to Hematology/Oncology departments across the country.

Update: Watch the CNN.com Live interview

Tara Suri, 16, hopes to help to young children around the world achieve their full potential.

Bake sales and recycling are common fundraising tactics in middle school. But Tara Suri wasn’t baking cupcakes for just any common cause. Her cause was hope, literally.

When Tara was 13, she was more than saddened by her trip to India with her family. From her sadness sprung the idea of trying to help the orphans in India and Sudan whom she saw abandoned by their parents, sometimes found in garbage dumps. Tara started H.O.P.E., or Helping Orphans Pursue Education. It aims to give kids the opportunity to achieve their full potential with the basics, like a sturdy roof over their heads, that Tara and her friends sometimes took for granted back in Scarsdale, New York.

Now, at 16, she has expanded her cause with an umbrella organization called Aandolan, which means “a movement for change” in Hindi. Through that fundraising group, Tara now runs Turn Your World Around and Connect a Kid along with H.O.P.E., and a lot of it for kids growing up continents away who are in sad situations.

Update: Watch the CNN.com Live interview

The members of S4 hope to educate college students about Social Security.

So maybe it’s not the sexiest issue on the campaign trail. But if it’s up to the founders of Students for Saving Social Security, it will be. The organization, known as S4, sees a chance to make the issue a hot one now.

“Now” is a big thing for the activist group that has a presence on colleges across the country. Its members fear that young people don’t think they have to care about Social Security until it’s too late. According to the Social Security Administration, the system is facing a $13.4 trillion shortfall.

S4 advocates the use of more personal retirement accounts to tighten the gap. It’s a solution conservatives often support. But its members maintain that the group is nonpartisan and that they only want Social Security to have more presence in political dialogue. That way, they hope, when the time comes for them to depend on it, it will be there.

Update: Watch the CNN.com Live interview

Aaron Sohacki fell in love with planes at an early age.

Like a lot of kids, Aaron Sohacki’s dad took him to watch airplanes take off and land at the airport. Like some kids, his love for watching planes turned into a love of flying, and he got his pilot’s license before his driver’s license. Uniquely, his love for flying turned into a passion for running a business that flies other people.

When Sohacki was 21, he started ImagineAir. It’s a regional company that lets regular folks fly privately. Along the way, he has flown some not-so-regular people like one of his first clients, the former mayor of Augusta, Georgia, who needed to fly to have dinner with Rudy Giuliani.

The charter service takes people 300-500 miles from the headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia. Considered a new version of a taxi service, the “air taxi” often costs less than commercial travel. Now age 24, the CEO still flies customers and often gets asked, “Are you even old enough to fly this plane?”

Update: Watch the CNN.com Live interview

29-year-old Genevieve Thiers is the founder of sittercity.com.

Genevieve Thiers was the oldest of seven kids, which meant she started baby-sitting almost as soon as she was born. But all the diapers, Friday nights in and lousy tips eventually paid off with millions.

In college, Thiers saw a pregnant woman posting fliers around campus for a baby-sitter. It was cheaper than going through an agency, which could cost in the thousands of dollars. After meeting her future husband online, Thiers thought that there had to be a better way. So she started sittercity.com, her real-life version of the “Baby-sitters Club” of young adult fiction.

The site launched in 2001 and has grown beyond connecting parents and sitters to bring together people in search of elder care and pet care with the caregivers of their choice. And now, at 29, Thiers gets to go out on Friday nights!

Update: Watch the CNN.com Live interview