Everyday Hero: 7-Year-Old Boy Donates Favorite Foods to Families in Need

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Having to use a food bank sucks, especially for kids. Food banks aren’t necessarily known for handing out kids’ favorite treats, and poor kids deserve treats or special snacks just as much as anybody else does. That’s what one seven-year-old was thinking when he went with his family to help at the food bank, and he looked around and realized that none of his favorite foods were there.

According to The Daily Meal, 7-year-old Kaden Newton from Rockwall, Texas, was with his family at the Helping Hands food pantry, and he was looking around at the things there and thinking about what it would be like to be getting that food, and he thought that if he were there with his family, he’d really want to see some of his favorite foods on the shelves.

“It was not like kid-friendly,” he said.

The idea of “kid-friendly” food is a matter of some debate amongst parents, but what Kaden meant was that they did not have food he and his friends liked to eat best.

“They didn’t have like Chef Boyardee or pancake mix,” Kaden said.

He knew there were kids getting food from the food pantry, and he figured they’d probably like what he likes. So he went home and started his own mini food drive for “kid-friendly food.” He calls it Mac and Cheese and Pancakes, because he says those are his two favorite foods. (When I was seven, those were my favorite foods too.) Then he started an Amazon Wishlist of things like Kraft Macaroni and Cheese, pasta, Spaghetti-Os, pancake mix, and more.

Kaden’s mom was hoping they’d maybe get 100 items. Kaden was hoping for 5,000. But in just 9 days, they got 7,300 food donations, and more are still coming in. The food bank is thrilled, and the kids shopping there are going to be ecstatic. Kaden’s parents are really proud of him, both for the instinct to help and for actually going through with it and pulling the massive gift off.

Most of all, Kaden’s empathy is wonderful. When people say, “Treat others as you would like to be treated,” this is exactly what that looks like. He looked at a situation and thought, “what would it be like to be in another kid’s shoes?” and then decided to try to help do something to make another kid happy. That’s pretty amazing, and that instinct will serve him well as an adult.