7 year old boy collects over 10,000 food items for charity
Kaden is a 7-year-old boy from Texas who is the founder of “Mac & Cheese and Pancakes”, an initiative that donates children-friendly foods to the local food pantry. Before he started his food initiative, Kaden had been donating for nearly three years to his local food charity, Helping Hands of Rockwell County.
Diana, Kaden’s mum, explained to The Huffington Post that this has been a cause close to Kaden’s heart from an early age. “Kaden has a wonderful heart. He came to me at 4 years old, while still in preschool, and mentioned that he wanted to start a ‘company’ to feed the poor,” Diana said.
“My husband and I are still not sure what he heard or witnessed to feel this way at such a young age.”
They took Kaden to the food pantry and donated some items that were in their kitchen. Kaden enjoyed the trip so much that he regularly asked to revisit and moved from just dropping off food to touring the pantry.
As Kaden spent more time at the food pantry, he felt compassion for the families waiting to receive food and asked about the young children who were in need.
“He also was very aware that many of the food items were not items that those kids could look forward too. Many areas of the shelves sat empty and desperately needed donations in order to get the particular food to the people in need. He grew to have a special place in his heart to take care of those young kids that he had seen waiting on their next meals,” explained Diana.
On the February 2 2017, Kaden launched his food initiative by creating an Amazon wish list with foods that children would be happy eating. The Amazon wish list allows anyone to donate to the cause and the food items are shipped directly to the local pantry.
Kaden also rallied his school, extracurricular, church, family and friend circles to all get on board with his vision and has received a great response from his community.
On February 19, approximately 10,300 items had been donated to “Mac & Cheese and Pancakes”. Although Kaden has reached an incredible benchmark, he will continue to work on his initiative to do all he can to reduce children in his area going without food.
Image credit: Mac & Cheese and Pancakes
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