Aaron's Presents

Last summer, a few weeks after Aaron died, Dan and I had a conversation about whether we wanted to set up a scholarship fund in his name, raise money for another cause, or something else. A couple nights later, I had a brainstorm and thought, What if we had a pool of money and gave out mini-grants to young kids to do small positive projects—for other people, for their own personal development—and we ended up with a gallery these cool projects done by kids simply because of Aaron’s life?  That would be a pretty neat legacy and tangible reflection of Aaron’s spirit and energy.

We call it Aaron’s Presents, because we see not only the projects themselves, but also the kids who will hopefully be inspired and positively affected by participating as Aaron’s presents to the world.  We also believe that through this program, his “presence” will continue to be felt—inspiring us, inspiring kids, touching the lives of those for whom the projects are being done, and creating a continual “ripple effect” of small thoughtful acts.

This spring we will pilot the program with the 6th grade of a local school and an after-school program, and we hope to open it up more widely by the end of this summer.

 www.aaronspresents.org