HILLIARD - "Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it." Proverbs 22:6 (NIV)

Chris and Shelli Bauer are raising their daughter, McKenzi, 7, to be helpful and think of others. The values they are instilling at home are reinforced by teachers at McKenzi's school, St. Andrew, in Upper Arlington, and at her church, St. Andrew Catholic Church. Recently, McKenzi demonstrated her faith and values by collecting money for the poor. Now, her effort to help those who are less fortunate has gotten attention from The Vatican.

At Christmas time, McKenzi decided to collect money to help poor people.

"She said to me 'Mom, I want to make this someone's best Christmas,'" Shelli Bauer recalled of a conversation she had with McKenzi.

McKenzi began quietly soliciting money from family and friends.

"She has always been aware since she was a young child that it is important to help others," her grandmother, Coal Grove First Lady Linda McKnight said. "She has always worried about other people, and is aware that some people do not have what other people have."

Shelli Bauer said they took the $60 collected to their pastor, the Rev. Michael Watson, who promised that the money would be given to a worthwhile charity. A short time later, McKenzi got a card in the mail: the money had been given to the local order of the Sisters of Charity, the order to which Mother Teresa of Calcutta belonged.

The sisters thanked McKenzi for her donation, and explained that the money had been used to buy blankets for five needy children, and to buy food for a needy family.

Then in February, McKenzi received a second envelope in the mail: this one contained a small medallion with an accompanying note: the medallion had been blessed by Pope John Paul II and had been touched by the late Mother Teresa.

"I think its neat," McKenzi Bauer said. "It's got a picture of Christ on the cross on one side of it and a picture of Mother Mary on the other side."

"I'm very proud of her," Shelli Bauer said.

"She has always been raised in church and I think that makes a difference," McKnight said. "She's a good kid, a normal kid, but one with a big heart."