TIME’s 2021 Kid of the Year is a Brilliant Black Boy

Eleven-year-old Orion Jean has been named TIME Magazine’s 2021 Kid of the Year, reported Star-Telegram. The sixth-grader is being acknowledged for the work he has done for kids his age by donating toys to even supporting families by donating meals. Our young king deserves his flowers for choosing so eagerly to help those in need.

Jean began a community service campaign “Race to Kindness” in 2020, which was initially funded by a $500 prize he won in the National Kindness Speech Contest, according to Texas Monthly. The campaign is composed of a few different projects all aimed toward addressing different needs.

From Texas Monthly:

He decided to start by donating toys to sick kids at Children’s Medical Center Dallas. “These kids are my age, and they’re just kids like me,” he recalls thinking before he launched a drive for five hundred toys in August 2020. Jean’s parents had helped him set up social media pages, and he filmed videos about the toy drive for them to post on his behalf. Donations began streaming in, and he collected and donated 619 toys to the hospital in only a month.

Not long after, in October, Jean set the ambitious goal of donating 100,000 free meals in time for Thanksgiving. “One of the most memorable parts of Thanksgiving is about the food and being thankful for the things that you have,” he says. “Unfortunately, some people may not have Thanksgiving meals, or meals in general on other nights. I felt like it was of great significance that we ended the drive around that date.”

Following the Thanksgiving meal drive, Jean also ran a drive collecting up to 500,000 books for kids living in poverty. Texas Monthly reported he’s collected 40,000 books so far and travels to different locations in the South to collect. Extending this passion for reading, he wrote his first book, A Kids Book About Leadership, sharing his experience running his campaign as well as helping kids learn how to initiate change themselves, per the Race to Kindness website.

Star-Telegram reported Jean was recognized at the Mansfield school district board meeting and his prize from TIME Magazine will be a monetary gift and the opportunity to be a kid reporter at the magazine. Our youth will never fail to impress us with the way they let their kindness lead them to make real change. Imagine what Orion will do ten years from now.