Cavanaugh Bell is only seven, but he’s already working to change the world for the better. He spent his life savings, $600, to make care packages for the elderly struggling with quarantine in his Maryland neighborhood. His 74-year-old grandmother told him on the phone about how her friends were not doing well and he wanted to help.
When he realized that lots of people wanted to help but weren't sure how the second-grader started his own nonprofit, Cool and Dope,
He heard that some kids in America were committing suicide. He searched to find out where this was happening the most and discovered it's an Indian Reservation called Pine Ridge in South Dakota. The Lakota tribe lives there in extreme poverty. The median income is $3,500 a year, 19 percent of the population lives past their 50th birthday and approximately 85 percent of Lakota families are affected by alcoholism.
So Cavanaugh got a rental truck donation and asked people in his circle of influence to help fill it with essential supplies that the reservation needed.
People started giving through his Amazon wishlist. He and some family friends loaded up a moving truck filled with everything from hygiene products to diapers to nonperishable food and drove it half way across the country!
"It's not fair that we're having great and happy lives when they're suffering in the middle of nowhere. Winter is horrible and this year it's gonna be a mixture of the flu and coronavirus, so I figured why don't we give them clothes to stay warm and make sure that they get to be warm like all of us and hopefully have a happy life like all of us."