(FORTUNE Small Business) – When ad agency CEO Mitch Tobol relaxes on the weekend, he may take in a movie, go bowling, or attend a college football game. Not so different from other small-business owners, except that Tobol's companions are often neither family members nor business buddies but mentally disabled young people who participate in Sparks, a program he founded in 1995.

"I love my business," says Tobol, 44. "I'm very passionate about advertising. But it's important to have balance in your life." His business, the Tobol Group, is a full-service marketing agency he founded 22 years ago in Port Washington, N.Y., with clients such as Long Island Savings Bank and Weight Watchers International. In his spare time, Tobol began volunteering with a college friend of his, Rob Lombardi, an administrator at a school for special-ed kids. Eventually the two created their own program to help learning-disabled teens and adults.

Eight years and 322 outings later, Sparks is now so popular that the waiting list runs years. Tobol limits the group to fewer than 20 members, and new spots usually open up only when members move away. "My daughter waited for three years to get into the program," says Marian Boland, the mother of group member Tina Boland, 28. "But it was worth it."

Tobol and Lombardi put together a calendar that would make a socialite faint. "We go to dinner and the theater," says Tobol. "We go to hockey games. We have holiday banquets. And bowling is a big favorite--we have a five-week tournament in the summer. We even go dancing at a club in New York."

Just as important as the events are the social connections among members. "We work hard to protect the dynamic of the group," he says. "These kids love each other. They form strong relationships that extend beyond our activities."

The group has not required special training, and Tobol and Lombardi keep the organization simple. Tobol says that Sparks was incorporated as a for-profit entity in order to avoid the legal expense involved in setting up a nonprofit. (Neither draws a salary, and the organization operates on a break-even basis.) Parents pay fees to cover operating costs (typically about $1,000 a year).

Many parents testify to the importance of the program in their children's lives. "It has freed my daughter to have a normal social life," says Boland. "With this group, these kids are able to do the kinds of things other kids do without even thinking about it. They can be together and thrive."

In Waltham, Mass., entrepreneur Paul Deninger has taken a slightly different approach to volunteer work. Deninger founded Wired Woods, which helps lower-income kids in middle school learn about technology. Since 1996 he's been CEO of Broadview International, an investment-banking firm specializing in technology firms, and he's acutely aware that most jobs today require computer skills. Those are often unavailable to lower-income children.

"Nearly all the 'digital divide' initiatives have focused simply on access," he says. "Computers are placed in schools and given to kids, but without real training in how to use them. I call it the Field of Dreams approach: If you build it, they will come. Unfortunately, they don't come--unless they're given real guidance." To address that, Deninger, 45, hatched the idea of teaching computer technology in summer camps. "At camp the kids are in a mode of trying new things," he says. "They're more willing to experiment, stretch themselves." In the first three years of the program, about 500 middle-schoolers have taken part.

"Most inner-city kids experience computers in a passive way," Deninger says. "Maybe they know how to surf the web or play computer games. But they don't understand how a computer works. We teach them to be producers rather than consumers. In 15 to 20 hours our program shows kids how to build websites by themselves, how to use computers creatively." Deninger leaves the actual teaching to professionals. "My role is to cheerlead, to observe the process, and to celebrate the kids' successes with them," he says.

Wired Woods is a nonprofit, with funding from a charitable foundation set up by Deninger and his wife, Lori, and is supplemented by grants from companies such as IBM and Sun Microsystems.

Already the Wired Woods program has had some notable successes. Kayla, 14 (the program will not release last names), decided after completing Wired Woods to attend Boston's technology-focused Media and Technology Charter High School. Caiheem and Sarah, both 14, are among the Wired Woods alums who have returned to the camps several summers in a row.

Andrea Grossman has also set up a program to help low-income middle-schoolers. Grossman, owner and founder of Mrs. Grossman's Paper Co. in San Francisco, created a program she calls Mrs. Grossman's Helping Hands. Her 25-year-old company, which manufactures stickers and sticker-art kits, donates hundreds of thousands of stickers each year to more than 300 hospitals across the country. "They help entertain the kids," says Rebecca Rice, child-life specialist at Children's Hospital in Oakland. "The hospital could never afford these."

But as the work of packaging stickers for each hospital became increasingly time-consuming, Grossman's solution was to organize a group of middle-school kids at Hunter's Point Youth Park, an after-school program in one of San Francisco's poorest and most crime-ridden neighborhoods, to meet twice a week and package stickers so that they could be shipped to the hospitals. "It was a way for these kids to feel they could contribute something to society," says Grossman, 71, "and also for them to become aware that there were children in worse situations than theirs."

Helping Hands participants are compensated for their work in gift certificates at music or sports stores. And because they attach their names to each package of stickers they prepare, hospitalized children can write and thank them. "We have a number of pen-pal relationships forming," says Grossman. Says Marian Jones, director of the Helping Hands project: "When our kids get letters and pictures back from sick children, it makes them feel that they've been able to help someone."

The 160 employees of Grossman's company can become involved with the program. "All the employees know these kids," says Grossman. "They've become part of our company family. They come to the Christmas party, the annual picnic."

According to Grossman, Helping Hands has had a considerable impact on participants' lives. "A middle-school principal called us," she says, "and asked, 'What are you people doing over at Hunter's Point? These kids are changing.' " Jones, the director, agrees. She cites the example of a 16-year-old boy whose involvement with the program helped him through a difficult childhood. "He has become a wonderful young man who is going to go places. He's been with us from the beginning," she adds, laughing, "and now he's 16, but he just keeps on coming!" Children identified as "discipline problems," says Grossman, are often able to change that reputation after immersion in the program. "One girl said to me, 'I don't fight anymore,' " she notes. "When I heard that, I knew we were doing something right."