"Hi, my name is Jake with the Do Something organization. Would you be willing to make a donation to kids in Asia who were affected by the tsunami?"

That's the basic telephone pitch Prozdor 8th grader Jake Mazza has been making since January 3—not for small change from fellow classmates, but for thousands of dollars from wellheeled business associates listed on a Rolodex belonging to his father, David B. Mazza, founder and managing partner of Grove Street Advisors, a Wellesley-based venture capital firm.

One of the worst natural disasters in decades, the December 26 tsunami in south Asia not only took the lives of more than 160,000 individuals, but also left thousands of young people in dire straits. "I've seen pictures of kids standing alone with no family," says Jake. "If my parents and friends disappeared in one day, that would be really hard."

Less than two years ago, the 14-year-old Newton Centre resident joined the Youth Advisory Council of Do Something, a national nonprofit organization that states its mission as empowering young people to "get off their sofas and into their communities to do something about the problems they see." Moved by the harrowing plight of tsunami victims, Jake decided to help the organization's Kids Tsunami Relief Fund raise money to rebuild two schools, a learning center, a medical clinic and an orphanage in India, Sri Lanka and Indonesia.

At first he aimed to collect more than $136,000, which was France's initial contribution to the tsunami victims. But when Chevrolet offered to donate one pickup truck for every $200,000 raised by the Kids Tsunami Relief Fund, he upped his target to $200,000. Within two weeks Jake raised $122,000 from about eighty donors, netting contributions of $100 to $10,000. At press time, Jake had raised $183,000, and Chevrolet had decided to donate five pickup trucks—one for each recipient location—regardless of the amount collected by the Kids Tsunami Relief Fund.

Since the start of his campaign, Jake has averaged two to four hours of calls per day, occasionally contacting as many as 200 potential donors in an afternoon with the help of friends. "These calls can be difficult because they put people on the spot," he reports. "But it's a little easier because I'm a kid."

While his involvement in Do Something and his access to his father's Rolodex gave Jake the tools to take action on behalf of young tsunami victims, his impulse to help others emerged much earlier, during visits to homebound relatives and participation in various mitzvah projects for his synagogue, Temple Mishkan Tefila in Chestnut Hill. "Jake was raised with a sense of giving back to the community when you can," says his mother Linda. "In this case, the community happens to be the world."

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