THE CHANGEMAKERS

Changemakers The

The young founders of these local charities prove that inspiration and impact can come in smaller-than-expected packages

By Liza Grant Smith

Lily Guari, Johnny Cassidy, Mercedes Cassidy

Blankets of Love

For a child, there’s an incredible sense of helplessness seeing a loved one battle cancer. Three young friends—Lily Guari (Rosarian Academy) and siblings Mercedes Cassidy (Jupiter High School, Environmental Research and Field Studies Academy) and Johnny Cassidy (The Greene School)—share that emotional struggle. Guari’s mother is a survivor of a rare form of leukemia and all three had grandmothers who were diagnosed with lung cancer.

To help ease the overwhelming toll of cancer treatment, the trio decided to bestow on patients a feeling of love and warmth in the form of a soft blanket. They had seen the effect such a gift could have in their personal lives and wanted to share this comfort with others.

In 2017, they started Blankets of Love and began fundraising for their first order of 200 blankets. Harnessing the power of social media, they developed Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram accounts to generate buzz, and have donated more than 300 blankets to leukemia cancer centers since the organization’s inception. Their first fundraiser, held at a skating rink with their peers in attendance, raised close to $900.

While flattered by accolades and awards like the one given to them by the Palm Beach Chamber of Commerce, the founders still receive the most joy from the reaction to the blankets.

“We get emails and thank-you notes from patients and learn how our little act of kindness has changed their life,” says Guari. “That’s the biggest deal for us.” (blanketsoflovepalmbeach.com)

Kayla Cares 4 Kids

School Lunch Fairy

William T. Dwyer High School student Kayla Abramowitz knows firsthand how dull and depressing hospitals can be for kids. Diagnosed with Crohn’s disease, juvenile arthritis, eosinophilic colitis, and gastroparesis, the 16-year-old has spent a great deal of her life in medical centers.

After exhausting all the DVDs in Nicklaus Children’s Hospital’s library during a two-week stay when she was 11, she had an epiphany. Upon returning home, she found several Thomas the Tank Engine DVDs that her family outgrew and promptly donated them to the hospital. The gift was met with enthusiastic appreciation. Abramowitz kept the momentum going and, with a goal of collecting 100 DVDs, handed out flyers in her North Palm Beach neighborhood. Within a week, she had 300 DVDs sitting in her living room. Kayla Cares 4 Kids was officially born.

Because her younger brother, who also has chronic medical issues, had been treated at Shriners Hospitals for Children, Abramowitz next focused her efforts on that nationwide network. Kayla Cares 4 Kids donated 500 DVDs across 10 Shriners locations to lift young patients’ spirits.

Kayla Abramowitz

Five years after its founding, Kayla Cares 4 Kids operates as a nonprofit organization with board members, advisory councils, and Abramowitz as CKO (Chief Kid Officer). To date, the organization has donated 17,000 items to keep kids entertained, including DVDs, video game consoles, books, and arts and crafts supplies, to nearly 450 children’s hospitals and Ronald McDonald Houses in all 50 states and Puerto Rico.

“This has been a wonderful thing to get my mind off my own health issues and to know that I have been able to make an impact on kids who are just like me,” says Abramowitz. (kaylacares4kids.org)

Bernardo Hasbach, Christian Cordon-Cano

Christian Cordon-Cano was riding in the car with his dad when he heard a story about lunch shaming on the radio. For The King’s Academy student, this was a foreign concept, but one he would soon realize is a symptom of a widespread, underlying problem.

Holding children publicly accountable for unpaid school lunch bills by giving them a cold cheese sandwich instead of a complete meal, or marking their hand with a stamp, or even dumping a student’s lunch in the trash, has received national attention and response from legislators. While some low-income families qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, others just miss qualifying and are left struggling to pay. As a result, 76 percent of all U.S. school districts have students with unpaid lunch debts.

With the mindset that every child in America deserves a good lunch, Cordon-Cano founded School Lunch Fairy with friend Bernardo Hasbach (a recent Alexander W. Dreyfoos School of the Arts grad now at MIT) to raise funds that school districts can use to create an emergency lunch fund for students in need, or to pay down existing lunch debt. Thanks to a solid social media presence and mentions from media like The New York Times, School Lunch Fairy has already donated to 24 school districts in 11 states.

Cordon-Cano, now attending the University of Miami, hopes the organization’s recent designation as a 501(c)(3) will attract more corporate sponsors, such as the local Duffy’s Foundation, which helped raise $10,000 for School Lunch Fairy through its Change for Charity initiative.

“Our friends have been very supportive of our organization because everyone can get behind a good cause,” he says. “I think it’s also helped them see that it doesn’t matter how old you are or where you come from—anyone can really impact the world.” (schoollunchfairy.org)