We've Got Your Back

Today I'm inspired because we kicked off our Great Kindness Challenge 2016 a few days early by inviting this superhero from a neighboring junior high to engage our students in her backpack project to help Houston's homeless.

Her name is Reagan and she's super passionate about her cause.

But this crusader's cape, well, it looks more like a backpack.
And though she doesn't help others for accolades and awards, I would like to affirm her work by mentioning that she is a recipient of the 
Charlotte Bacon Acts of Kindness Award.

It all began, she told a very still audience of 1000 students at our weekly Wednesday Warbles gathering, with a question: 

Do you have a backpack?

She went on to explain that initially it was feelings of guilt about not being able to help the homeless person who asked that question that urged her fifth-grade self back then to ask her mom to take her to a store to buy some backpacks for them. When her mom told her to look for a more creative way to meet that need, Reagan only had to go to her room to find the first few backpacks that would kick off that initial collection of one hundred and twenty five backpacks three years ago. This year, her goal is to collect a thousand backpacks. She confidently told our students that it shouldn't be a problem to meet that lofty goal, because "I've got you." That's when she invited them to help her collect backpacks as a part of our Great Kindness Challenge next week. Kids helping kids; isn't that the best?

Check out her four-minute presentation here.

If you're in the Houston area and would like to donate to Reagan's We've Got Your Back project, you can bring your gently-used backpacks to Westwood or Bales any day next week.

Thank you, Reagan, for being a beacon of light 

and making our world a kinder place to be!