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Publisher Nivia Viera”™s fourth-floor office overlooks the busy corner of Court and Main streets and Louis Cappelli”™s newly developed Renaissance Square in downtown White Plains. She keeps an eye out there for Westchester movers and shakers on the streets below.
“Face time,” said Viera, who is ever on the lookout to recruit a potential sponsor of the nonprofit enterprise, Kids X-Press Inc., which she co-founded seven years ago. “That”™s really important.”
Its readership reach comes mainly through library systems, Viera said. When Siobhan Reardon, former executive director of the Westchester Library System and a Kids X-Press Inc. director, took over as head of the Philadelphia Library System this year, the magazine was introduced to young readers there. In Chicago, a sergeant in the city police department hands out the magazine in the department”™s drug abuse education program for school-age youths. Subscribers can get home delivery for a fee of $19.95 per year or $35.95 for two years. Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â
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Several years ago, Viera was involved with other parents in starting a student newspaper at their White Plains elementary school. Kids “in droves” gave up their recess time to write for the paper, and Viera realized that kids love “writing about what they want to write about. What I let them do is express themselves in their own voice.” She and two founding partners decided to do more with a children”™s publication.
“It took a year or two to wrap my head around how to get a nonprofit started,” said Viera, whose publishing venture came after a 20-year career as a health care administrator, chiefly at Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx. She pulled together donations of cash and in-kind services, spoke to community leaders, filled out voluminous paperwork, doing “all of what it takes to launch an organization.” The New York Power Authority was the nonprofit”™s first donor in 2003.
Four years ago, “Kids X-Press” became a quarterly. In 2007 and 2008, 11 issues totaling about 140,000 copies were printed. They include specially themed regular issues, such as a “Stop the Violence” edition sponsored by the Westchester County Youth Bureau and funded by the county, and this fall”™s special issue focusing on juvenile diabetes and written by victims of the chronic disease. For that, the third such juvenile diabetes issue published by Kids X-Press, Viera secured Bayer Health Care and the New England chapter of the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation as sponsors.
“We”™ve been compared a lot to Highlights,” the educational children”™s magazine, Viera said. “The big difference between Kids X-Press and perhaps Highlights and others is that it”™s all written by kids. It may be cream-of-the-crop for some (submissions), but everyone gets a shot, and that”™s the huge difference.”  Â
About 80 percent of the content in regular issues comes from children in after-school programs and summer camps in Westchester and the South Bronx. About 1,000 kids have contributed to the magazine in those six-week programs, developed by Kids X-Press and for which it is paid $3,500 by contracting agencies. Another 2 percent to 3 percent of the quarterly writing and illustrations are independent submissions, Viera said. From 15 percent to 18 percent of material comes from KXP On-Call, a press corps of youths ages 11 through 14 that has had 45 members. Seasoned reporters in the corps have interviewed CEOs, politicians, media personalities and performing artists, including U.S. Senators Hillary Clinton and Charles Schumer, Donald Trump and the Cheetah Girls.
In 2009, Viera hopes to find a financial sponsor for a teen issue of Kids X-Press to serve its aging reader and contributor base. The publisher also wants to do more special issues on autism and other chronic diseases in the words and art of children coping with them.
Viera aims to expand the after-school and camp programs from about 10 in Westchester this year to 15 in 2009 while launching pilot programs in Newark, Philadelphia and Chicago. And she is looking to expand bulk subscription deliveries.Â
With Westchester as a base, “The overall goal is to be national, if not global,” she said. She wants to distribute the magazine in at least 10 metropolitan areas primarily through library systems. With market penetration, Kids X-Press will follow with its after-school curriculum “so that the local kids get their voices heard,” she said.
 “Now it”™s time to roll out the Westchester model and export it to those areas. We”™re starting to feel like we”™re coming into our own with this model.” Â
The publisher-editor has proven to be an able fundraiser as well. The nonprofit”™s annual income rose from $35,000 in 2005 to $180,000 in 2007. One major donor has been Entergy Corp., which underwrote the cost of the 2006 juvenile diabetes issue and donated $70,000 in 2007 and $30,000 this year to Kids X-Press. Viera said the Westchester Community Foundation recently awarded the magazine a three-year, $40,000 grant that begins in 2009.
“A print publication is an expensive thing. To underwrite one of our quarterly publications is $20,000” for 22,000 copies, Viera said. “I couldn”™t do it without the business community. Investing in an organization like Kids X-Press, especially at a time when government might be cutting back on educational programs, I think is a good investment. It”™s unique. It”™s outside the box. I think businesses would consider it a good use of their resources to invest in kids”™ publications.”
“Our mission is to enhance language skills, first and foremost. That builds self-confidence and gives them a voice. As long as we stay grounded in that mission, this publication is going to grow.”