You guys saw the one about Caine’s Arcade, right?
Or at least MOST of it, if you were like me and your eyeballs started getting dusty all of five minutes in, so you watched the rest of it through a cloudy haze of I LOVE HUMANITY SO MU-U-UCH tears.
On the off chance you missed it when it went MEGA HUGE VIRAL earlier this year, well. Dude, I have just made your Wednesday. (But ruined your mascara.) It’s absolutely worth watching. Multiple times, even.
Anyway, it’s been a full year since 9-year-old Caine was surprised with a flash mob of customers at his homemade cardboard arcade of childhood imagination and magic. The short film about him was uploaded five months ago, and has been viewed over 3.6 million times (according to the Vimeo stats). A college fund for Caine was started, with a goal of $25,000.
Within 24 hours, it hit $60,000. And it didn’t stop there.
Within a week, everybody was already thinking bigger, better and more:
A week later, we received a matching dollar-for-dollar seed funding grant of $250,000 from the Goldhirsh Foundation to help start the Caine’s Arcade Imagination Foundation to help more innovative kids.
As of this writing, they’ve raised $216,196.22.
The Caine’s Arcade film now has a sequel, which includes updates on Caine (SPOILER ALERT: HE’S STILL AWESOME), his arcade and the plans for the Imagination Foundation:
It’s a simple yet completely heartwarming, awesome idea:
The Imagination Foundation is launching the first ever Global Cardboard Challenge, inviting the world to play while raising funds to foster creativity and entrepreneurship in kids.
September will be the month to organize and build, then on October 6th (the one-year anniversary of the flashmob that came out to make Caine’s day) friends, family, co-workers and community members can come out to play at local events, celebrating the creativity and imagination of kids around the world.
You can get more details here on hosting a “day of play” event, or find one that’s already in the works in your area. Then rustle up some cardboard boxes, empty paper towel tubes and maybe a rubber band or two and get your kids’ imaginations going.
(I AM NOT CRYING. I JUST THINK THIS CARDBOARD BOX CONTAINED ONIONS AT SOME POINT.)
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About Amy Corbett Storch
