Cousins + cupcakes = connection . . . .
Greetings once again from us all here at the OM@home blog – a blog about children and young people, written for children and young people . . . .
For young people just like you, about young people who inspire us all at OM HQ.
Young people like Allison Nguyen and Laura Li . . . .
The cousins in question have two passions in life . . . .
The first is baking, the pair specializing in the most marvellous cupcakes imaginable.
The second is spreading happiness, making a difference and helping those less fortunate.
The teenage Texans have combined the two to create something rather amazing . . . .
It’s called the Iced Capades Cakery.
Iced Capades is a non-profit organization that exists to spread joy, through cake, to those needing a little cheer . . . .
Children living in shelters, for instance, their lives lacking stability, a place to call their own and the simple pleasures that we all take for granted.
Things like a cake to mark birthdays and other special events.
That’s where Allison, Laura and their team come in.
You see, Iced Capades create and distribute the most amazing cakes to those most in need.
Having started small, Allison and Laura have grown to serve six shelters in the Houston area, providing cakes for hundreds of underprivileged children each month and, what is more, plans are afoot to expand the operation far beyond their Texas base.
The reason, to quote from the Iced Capades founders themselves, is that ‘children displaced to shelters often have minimal or no resources available to them . . . and their normal lives and routines are often disrupted. Because all the focus at that point is on [life's] basic necessities, extravagant needs such as a birthday cake are often neglected. [Iced Capades is] here to restore some semblance of normalcy for those children and simply to put a smile on their faces’.
This has put a smile on our faces, for sure, as there is nothing that inspires us more in our studio than hearing tales of young people putting themselves out for others, being creative and striving to make a difference in the world.
Here in Saunderstown, we’d like to applaud Allison and Laura and thank them for motivating us to make more OMs – our own method of spreading smiles.
Is there something that you could do help others and share a little happiness?
Think about it some time . . . .
Drew’s lemonade is the best in town . . . .
Hello again from us all here at the OM@home blog, a blog about children and young people, written for children and young people . . . .
For young people just like you, about young people who inspire us all at OM HQ.
Young people like Drew Cox . . . .
Drew, pictured with Micah and Jake, his younger brothers, is just six years old . . . . .
But when he discovered that Randy, his father, was suffering from a rare form of cancer, he decided that he had to do something to help.
One morning last month, he set up a lemonade stall on the street outside the Cox family’s East Texas home . . . .
He made a sign (the message read ‘please help my dad’) and charged 25 cents a cup.
Before long, a queue had formed that snaked right around the block.
Friends, neighbors and relatives all turned up to taste a drink described as ‘the best in town’.
It didn’t take long for the word to spread, with some driving up to 70 miles to support Drew’s efforts and aid Randy’s cause.
‘He’s so important to me,’ said Drew, whose appeal for help has touched hearts all over the planet. ‘[Such] love can come from [such] a small child and blossom into something amazing,’ said Robin McDaniel, amongst those in the queue that magical morning.
Something remarkable occurred that day, because Drew’s 25 cent lemonade stall raised $10,000 to go towards Randy’s medical costs. It doesn’t end there, though, for further donations have pushed the current total past the $20,000 mark.
The best news for Drew, Micah and Jake is that Randy’s prognosis is good, and that the doctors treating him are confident that he is going to recover. Having such amazing children, he has an awful lot to live for.
Drew’s tale inspired us for several reasons, and it’s our hope that it might make all our readers think . . . .
. . . . about their families and the important things in life, about friends, neighbors and communities, about helping each other out and being together, and about standing up and making a difference.
The main lesson here is that size is not important, and that the smallest amongst us can make the biggest impact in this world. Just think about Drew, and then look at our OMs . . . .
Here’s to a little boy with a huge heart and here’s to his dad, who must be a special man indeed.
‘The best cardboard arcade ever made . . . .’
It’s us again, here at the OM@home blog, a blog about children and young people, written for children and young people . . . .
For young people just like you, about young people who inspire us all at OM HQ.
Young people like Caine Monroy . . . .
Finding himself at a loose end one morning, Caine did not turn to the television.
Video games did not enter his thoughts, nor too did making mischief.
Instead, creative Caine set about making something altogether different . . . .
His own arcade.
Using cardboard boxes, tape and immense imagination, Caine’s arcade became more and more elaborate as the days passed.
Little did the nine-year-old imagine that it could change his life forever.
Change his life it has, though, the catalyst a man called Nirvan Mullick, a film-maker who, seeking a replacement door handle for his car, headed to Smart Parts Auto in East LA.
Smart Parts is the store that Caine’s dad, George, owns and runs . . . .
It is also where Caine had chosen to assemble his arcade.
Being an arcade enthusiast himself, Nirvan took an immediate interest and enquired about having a turn.
‘I asked Caine how it worked and he told me that, for $1, I could get four turns or, for $2, I could get a Fun Pass with 500 turns,’ he recalls. ‘I got the Fun Pass.’
Hooked, Nirvan decided to make a short film about Caine’s Arcade.
You simply have to see it. It’s called Caine’s Arcade . . . .
Some remarkable things here:
Caine himself, and Nirvan’s amazing movie . . . .
The fact that inside four days, more than 3.5 million people had seen it . . . .
That an accompanying scholarship fund that Nirvan established for Caine has, thus far, received almost $170,000 in online donations . . . .
That a matching scholarship fund has been set up as a result, to help ‘find, fund and foster other amazing kids’.
Not a bad return from a cardboard arcade, built in a quiet auto parts store in East LA.
It just shows that a little imagination can go a long way . . . .
Here in Saunderstown, Rhode Island, the home of the OM, we’re all about being creative.
You should try it yourself . . . .
Who knows where it might lead?
For more details about Caine’s Arcade, including opening hours, directions, Fun Passes and information about scholarship donations, click here.
The Martin Luther King of the disabled . . . .
Hello again from us all here at the OM@home blog, a blog about children and young people, written for children and young people . . . .
For young people just like you, about young people who inspire us all at OM HQ.
Young people like Nolan Turner . . . .
Nolan was born with spina bifida and has spent his life searching for something that can make him feel like ‘a normal person’.
In recent times, he has found it.
That thing, basketball, the wheelchair version, a sport that, in his own words, ‘lets me feel like a regular kid’.
Turning out for the Raleigh Junior Thunder team in North Carolina is Nolan’s favourite thing in life, so much so that he decided to introduce his fifth-grade classmates to his preferred pastime.
That, Nolan discovered, came at a cost.
The determined 12-year-old needed $1000 to stage a wheelchair basketball event – open to disabled and able-bodied students alike – at his local school and set about selling bottled water and collecting donations in his neighborhood.
Sitting in his wheelchair, he had raised almost $250 when a man took his collecting jar and disappeared into some nearby woods, leaving Nolan in tears.
‘I felt so much anger,’ said Ashley Thomas, the founder of Bridge II Sports, a non-profit organization that helps the physically-challenged through sports, and who also has spina bifida. ‘You’re looked on as helpless, and it’s like ‘I’ll take advantage of you because you can’t stop me’. Unfortunately, people see the disability instead of the things you can do.’
The coward who stole from Nolan might have seen his disability, but he did not notice the determination and resolve that his victim has in spades.
You see, refusing to be beaten, Nolan set about turning bad into good and is using an unfortunate episode to benefit others.
Having witnessed the incident, one kind-hearted citizen gave Nolan $60 on the spot. Since then the donations have poured in, the current total standing at more than $26,000.
‘It’s crazy how that mean act has turned into something positive that has allowed us to do so much more,’ said Ashley, who, like Nolan, has been stunned by the kindness demonstrated by so many selfless strangers. ‘The response has been huge.’
Some of the money will be used to fund a full-day wheelchair basketball event, that will enable everyone at Nolan’s school to take part. The remainder will go to supporting Camp Carefree, a week-long summer camp for young people with health problems and disabilities that Nolan has attended in the past.
‘I’m just happy that there are so many good people in the world and that they are helping my team,’ Nolan said. ‘Junior Thunder is my favourite thing in life. Playing wheelchair basketball lets me feel like a regular kid.’
Nolan is now drawing up plans to raise funds for some special track-and-field wheelchairs as he continues his quest to help others.
‘That’s the real success,’ said Ashley. ‘[That] he chose himself to make a difference’.
Nolan’s mom, Amy, added, ‘He told me, ‘I’m going to be the Martin Luther King of disabled people’. He [just] loves raising money. We owe so much to wheelchair sports. I remember after our first game, we went and had pizza and, when we were driving home, Nolan said, ‘This makes me feel like a normal person’. Most of his life he’s been the oddity . . . . this is such a wonderful thing’.
Nolan has inspired us . . . .
For refusing to give up, for showing such determination and courage, for putting himself out for others, and for proving that there is so much more to disabled people than just their disabilities.
Here’s to him and here’s to happy endings.
Standing up for himself and others . . . .
Greetings, welcome and thanks for calling in at our brand new OM@home blog, a blog about children and young people, written for children and young people . . . .
For young people just like you, about young people who inspire us all at OM HQ.
Young people like Nadin Khoury . . . .
Nadin’s family fled Liberia 12 years ago, seeking a better life in the United States.
Having seen some bad things in their homeland, they’d expected to be safe in Pennsylvania.
Being bullied had not been in their plans.
Sadly, heading for school one morning, that is what happened to Nadin.
The teenager is not the first person to be bullied, nor will he be the last, but his actions thereafter should serve as a signpost for us all.
You see, Nadin refused to take the easiest path, the one the bullies had marked out for him . . . .
Instead, showing great courage, he stood tall and did the most difficult thing.
Nadin told someone.
Not just for his own sake, but thinking also about others.
‘Next time, maybe it could be someone smaller than me,’ he says. ‘Maybe next time, someone could really get hurt’.
Nadin’s life has changed beyond recognition since he made his stand.
You see, hearing about his pluck, his three favourite players from the NFL – Philadelphia Eagles stars DeSean and Jamaal Jackson and Todd Herremans – took time out from training to meet Nadin and congratulate him for being so brave.
‘Any time you ever need us, I [have] got two linemen here,’ DeSean told Nadin, before admitting that he too had experienced childhood bullying and that, with a 13-year-old brother called Desmond, the issue remains important to him.
‘He [Desmond] is a small guy too,’ he said. ‘Nadin reminded me of him. When I thought of kids doing that stuff to my little brother, man, that really got to me’.
So much so that DeSean has started his own personal crusade against bullying . . . .
. . . . all because Nadin did the right thing.
He has inspired others too, not least LaToro Yates, the director of admissions at Valley Forge Military Academy.
Himself bullied as a child, LaToro heard that Nadin’s ambition is to become a US Marine and has arranged for the courageous teen to enrol as a VFMA cadet.
‘I admire his courage,’ he said. ‘It takes courage just to come to school the next day, but to step up and go public to help other kids? Wow.’
Nadin should serve as an example to us all . . . .
To do the right thing, even though it is difficult . . . .
To think about the next person . . . .
To tell someone . . . .
Because teenager, NFL star or Marine, everyone has experienced bullying at some point and all are determined to do something about it.
Being bullied? Please don’t suffer in silence. Speak up, tell an adult, do something about it. You’re not alone, there are people out there ready to help. Click here for further information.
