This 8-year-old Boy Can Teach Us A lot About Being Better Humans

Earlier this month, lunchtime superhero Keoni Ching raised over $4,000 to help pay off the student lunch debt at his school, Franklin Elementary, in Vancouver, Washington. Keoni’s goal to help his fellow classmates started during “Kindness Week,” but it wasn’t until he discovered Richard Sherman, cornerback for San Francisco 49ers, donated over $27,000 to pay off lunch debts for middle schoolers that Keoni was inspired to do the same.

Despite Keoni not having that large amount of money on hand to donate, he had a better idea: he was going to make and sell handmade keychains to raise money instead. Keoni decided on designing custom keychains for the simple and heart-warming reason of he just really “loves key chains. They look good on my backpack.”

After initially selling them for $5 to Vancouver locals, word spread faster than wildfire that Keoni was hoping to end the lunch debt at his school and within days people from all over America started requesting one of his keychains.

Luckily Keoni wasn’t working alone in this venture, with the help of his family he was able to sell over 300 keychains.

His mother April Ching was shocked at the fact they “sent key chains to Alaska, Rhode Island, Minnesota, Arizona, all over the country… There was one lady who said she wanted $100 worth of key chains so that she could just hand them out to people. … There were several people who bought one key chain and gave (Keoni) a hundred bucks. It was absolutely amazing how much support the community showed for his whole project.”

The end total of Keoni’s hard work and dedication was a grand total of $4,015 and he even got to officially deliver the whopping check to Franklin Elementary. Of the amount raised, $1,000 went to his school to cover the costs of the $500 accumulated in lunch debt and for any students who might need some help in the future.

Woody Howard, Franklin Elementary’s Principle, commented on how “lunches here are about $2. But if you have two or three kids and for whatever reason, you’ve missed (paying for) a week of lunch or breakfasts, that adds up pretty quickly… This type of a gift takes a little bit of pressure off of your family.”

The remaining amount was dispersed equally to six other schools in Washington, receiving $500 to go towards stopping their own student lunch debts.

So, let’s all take the Keoni approach to life: working together to better your community and offering a helping hand when you notice someone in need because it truly “makes the world a better place.”

Words By Nia Alavezos – 02/03/20

Picture – Still From CNN Clip