In 2020, Texas boy Orion Jean used a $500 speech-contest prize to launch a kindness drive; it grew from more than 600 toys to 100,000 meals and 500,000 books, and he is now pursuing one million acts of kindness/Image: Instagram
He used the $500 prize as seed money for his first project, Race to 500 Toys.
A $500 prize from a school speech contest led a Texas teenager to launch a toy drive for children at a local hospital Jean told Reading Is Fundamental (RIF), a non-profit children’s literacy organization in the United States, that winning the contest became the “catalyst” for something much bigger.
With help from his community, Jean collected more than 600 toys for a local hospital, according to his account of the initiative. His next campaign, Race to 500,000 Books, eventually exceeded its target. The organisation says its broader efforts have included more than 500,000 books, more than 100,000 meals and hundreds of toys distributed to children in hospitals and underserved communities.
Jean has said he wants children to have the same access to books that he had growing up. That approach eventually led him to focus on children’s access to books. As per RIF, the initiative resulted in more than half a million books being donated to school districts, nonprofits and children through Race to Kindness free book fairs held across the US. For Jean, the book campaign was not simply about putting more books into children’s hands. He connected access to reading with a child’s ability to learn, explore different perspectives and develop a broader understanding of the world. His work with books has become one of the defining parts of Race to Kindness.