so every single year my parents would
take me to India or try to at least just
to keep in touch with my roots and learn
about the culture eat their food meet my
family and I loved it every single part
of it was so different than what I was
used to here in America
honestly like there’s some pictures up
there like my family and the places
we’ve been but there was one thing that
always stood out to me and it was just
the children there just the sheer amount
if you’re walking down the street you’ll
see kids selling you food at vendor
carts that are much younger than you or
you’ll see kids playing on the street
and I always was kind of confused about
this like why weren’t these kids in
school like I was I was also a little
bit jealous honestly I mean they didn’t
have to really worry about homework or
in-class essays but I don’t know it
seemed weird to me I remember being at
my cousin’s house and my cousin’s had
all gone to school that day so it was my
brother and I and the housekeeper came
and she brought her child with her and
we were playing with the child and I
asked the child why he didn’t go to
school and he just physically didn’t
answer so I just kind of glossed over it
and I didn’t really think much of it
because I was so young one day I was 8
years old
and we were in India and we had just
gone to the Taj Mahal and we were coming
back out and we were stuck in Agra
traffic and if you guys know that the
traffic in India it can get really rough
and so we were at a standstill and there
were kids weaving in and out trying to
sell me things through the car window
and this confused me a lot and there was
this one child in particular I remember
he was about my age he could barely see
it into the car window and he was
selling flowers and I looked over at my
uncle who was driving the car and I said
hey can we buy some and he told me no
and he told me to not even make eye
contact with these kids just because
most of the time these kids in his
opinion their parents were drunks or
drug users or just in general not people
you really wanted to sponsor and the
money would go to them and then I told
him that that didn’t seem fair and he
said yeah and he said that even if their
parents were good people a lot of times
the Mafia controlled these children and
if we were giving money to them we would
just be sponsoring them
and that wasn’t what I wanted so it just
seemed unfair to me these kids they
didn’t do anything wrong
those kids could easily have been me
they’re just born into the wrong
situation and honestly that just felt so
unfair to me so a few years later I was
in fifth grade and we came back and it
was my dad’s high school reunion and I
ended up standing on a table with this
woman named distant chatter baby my
dad’s ex classmate and I started talking
to her because she was a school teacher
herself and I asked her this question I
said why are there so many children that
aren’t in school here like there are in
America and she told me that India does
have child labor laws except the
children are just it’s such a norm for
those children to be working and that it
doesn’t really register with people so I
told her that that didn’t seem fair to
me and I didn’t like that and she said
her mother was the same way and after
she retired her mother in fact opened up
a school in her own house for kids to
come and learn but due to and her
unexpected death
it didn’t really continue and although
she was trying there were a lot of
hurdles that she wasn’t able to overcome
because of it and I asked her more and
more about it I was very curious and she
told me to come to her house and see
where she taught them which was on the
roof of her home so I came and this is
these are the slums that we passed by
right here and I remember just being
completely horrified that people were
living in these conditions and when we
met the kids they seemed so happy just
to have what they had even though it
wasn’t much at all and I really really
did want to do something but we were
leaving in two days back for Oklahoma
City which is where I’m originally from
and I didn’t feel like I could do that
much as one person but we went back and
I did what I could and so I went through
our entire house completely ransacked it
and picked out all the extra pencils and
notebooks and art supplies and goodie
bags that we had leftover and my dad was
going back in a couple months so
put them all in a bag and I sent it to
him and I said dad please please just
gives these kids but I have at my house
you know I can’t really do much and the
pictures we got back were just so
incredible these kids the happiness on
their faces from getting just pencils
that are decorative with like beautiful
erasers or just they’re seeing colored
pencils for the first time just that
happiness I just I couldn’t explain it
and I wanted to share it with people and
I just I was young though so I just did
what I would as a ten-year-old and I
went to my friends and I went to some
teachers that I liked and I just kind of
told them about it and soon we started
sending these packages these care
packages every couple every few months
just my friends and I and just the local
people we had but I wanted to do more
because I knew that if I was getting
such support from just my group of
friends how other people would respond
and so there’s this nonprofit in
Oklahoma City it was called om RA for
Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation and
one day I was reading the newspaper I
don’t know why I don’t really read the
newspaper honestly I found this like a
little clipping and it was like teen
leaders in philanthropy looking for like
applicants for om RF and this was
something I had heard about because it’s
very well-known in Oklahoma City and
it’s just this program that they have
it’s very selective it usually only
takes upperclassmen in high school to
teach them that ins and outs of a
non-profit and to teach them how to make
connections and how to fundraise and
it’s something I really wanted to do so
even though I knew I didn’t really have
a shot at it I tried and I got in and
like I’m right there this I should know
um so then the first step I did was I
went to my school community I went to my
Chapel and I gave a chapel talk that
very first time and I told them I them
about these children when I wanted to
help and from the first time we raised
over 40,000 rupees if that tells you
anything
the usual wage every single day for an
average person in
is a hundred rupees which is like a
dollar 50 so we even by raising over
$700 we were able to install a computer
vocational Center with laptops for these
kids to keep up with our increasingly
connected world which is just absolutely
incredible something they weren’t ever
exposed to before and so I just do
different things like this and it got
bigger and bigger and then soon I went
just from my state to different states I
started spreading the word so I was a
camp counselor this summer and a lot of
kids would leave their clothes and the
cabins not sure if any of you have been
to camp but like a lot of kids just kind
of leave everything and a lot of the
times those clothes are really dirty so
goodwill and things don’t want to take
those clothes because they’re actually
nasty they’re like dirt they’re actually
dirt covered and so I went and I
realized wow like kids in India a lot of
these kids they wouldn’t come because
Nathan day would teach on top of her
roof and in the winter they didn’t have
the clothes to want to come because they
would just get too cold it was just bad
weather for them so I saw these clothes
and I thought wow I can take them and
use them so I brought them all home
trash bags Vonn trash bags and I washed
all these clothes and folded them and
then this winter when we went to India I
brought it to them and the smiles on our
faces were just I can’t even
it was amazing ginger girthy has really
expanded from when we first started if
you’ve seen it now we have over 60 kids
that come every day after school other
community or other organizations have
gotten involved on the left if you can
see that we have a local teacher who
dislikes teaches karate and he went I
want to teach these the older kids
karate so they have like something
wholesome to hold on to and he even
teaches the girls like self-defense
which is really important and just not
only that we’ve had a lot of kids go
through this program who have just done
incredible things we had a girl just
recently who got into an accelerated
computer programming like program which
was incredible and we’ve had to go into
engineering
but not only that I feel like on a very
human level there are other like little
accomplishments that we have almost
every day there’s one girl who’s about
to get married off when she was 13 and
we convinced her parents to keep her in
school and to study her and study and
keep her education going we taught them
the importance of education which is
very important or there is another child
that I met this winter and he was such
an incredible artist but he hadn’t gone
to school for a few years because
there’s a sickness in his family which
left them penniless and he had to work
to help his family get out of that
poverty but they’d he had just gotten
admission into school last week which is
really incredible so this winter I went
to a place called fatehpur sikri which
is this really important city and it’s
beautiful and it was founded by the
great Mughal emperor Akbar and then
there’s a place called bull and the Raza
which is this beautiful like gateway on
the left and it’s to get into the palace
inside in the tomb where a clerk is
actually buried so we went there and I
loved it but there’s this one thing that
kind of ruined that so on the left
this was the cart that we had to take to
this horse cart that we had to take to
get there there’s a child there he’s
about nine years old and he was working
and that really unsettled me and then if
you see that’s my brother and I and you
can see these kids that were just kind
of running around or trying to sell you
things while you were there and there
was this one child in particular I
remember he was about like this tall he
was tiny
he was probably six years old he didn’t
have shoes on and he kept following my
family around and asking hey like can I
recite these poems for you it’ll only be
like five rupees I swear like I can do
it and he this kid seemed really bright
to me he seemed really persuasive and so
I asked him I said hey are you in school
and he said I used to be in school but
my school was for impoverished children
who run by French missionaries and I was
at the top of my class in math too but I
didn’t know French so they didn’t pass
me and then they took me out of school
so I could earn money for my family and
then I said okay can you show me like
what math you know can you say your
times tables and he was like yeah I can
say my time
tables and then like alright can you do
for me and he started rattling off his
like times tables up to twelve just like
quicker than I could do quite honestly
and it’s like while he was doing it this
like crowd of tourists started like fall
like just circling around him and that
day he got more money than he ever would
sing those poems and I saw the spark in
his eyes that wow education is important
I can do something with my education
people can understand that and so the
problem is obviously still there there’s
so many children out there like these
kids who are still working who haven’t
learned the importance of education just
because they don’t have the luxury to do
so so I want to leave you all with this
even if you think that you really can’t
do anything and you’re just one person
if you’re passionate enough about
something that takes one person to
change the world and you can easily be
that one person thank you
[Applause]
take me to India or try to at least just
to keep in touch with my roots and learn
about the culture eat their food meet my
family and I loved it every single part
of it was so different than what I was
used to here in America
honestly like there’s some pictures up
there like my family and the places
we’ve been but there was one thing that
always stood out to me and it was just
the children there just the sheer amount
if you’re walking down the street you’ll
see kids selling you food at vendor
carts that are much younger than you or
you’ll see kids playing on the street
and I always was kind of confused about
this like why weren’t these kids in
school like I was I was also a little
bit jealous honestly I mean they didn’t
have to really worry about homework or
in-class essays but I don’t know it
seemed weird to me I remember being at
my cousin’s house and my cousin’s had
all gone to school that day so it was my
brother and I and the housekeeper came
and she brought her child with her and
we were playing with the child and I
asked the child why he didn’t go to
school and he just physically didn’t
answer so I just kind of glossed over it
and I didn’t really think much of it
because I was so young one day I was 8
years old
and we were in India and we had just
gone to the Taj Mahal and we were coming
back out and we were stuck in Agra
traffic and if you guys know that the
traffic in India it can get really rough
and so we were at a standstill and there
were kids weaving in and out trying to
sell me things through the car window
and this confused me a lot and there was
this one child in particular I remember
he was about my age he could barely see
it into the car window and he was
selling flowers and I looked over at my
uncle who was driving the car and I said
hey can we buy some and he told me no
and he told me to not even make eye
contact with these kids just because
most of the time these kids in his
opinion their parents were drunks or
drug users or just in general not people
you really wanted to sponsor and the
money would go to them and then I told
him that that didn’t seem fair and he
said yeah and he said that even if their
parents were good people a lot of times
the Mafia controlled these children and
if we were giving money to them we would
just be sponsoring them
and that wasn’t what I wanted so it just
seemed unfair to me these kids they
didn’t do anything wrong
those kids could easily have been me
they’re just born into the wrong
situation and honestly that just felt so
unfair to me so a few years later I was
in fifth grade and we came back and it
was my dad’s high school reunion and I
ended up standing on a table with this
woman named distant chatter baby my
dad’s ex classmate and I started talking
to her because she was a school teacher
herself and I asked her this question I
said why are there so many children that
aren’t in school here like there are in
America and she told me that India does
have child labor laws except the
children are just it’s such a norm for
those children to be working and that it
doesn’t really register with people so I
told her that that didn’t seem fair to
me and I didn’t like that and she said
her mother was the same way and after
she retired her mother in fact opened up
a school in her own house for kids to
come and learn but due to and her
unexpected death
it didn’t really continue and although
she was trying there were a lot of
hurdles that she wasn’t able to overcome
because of it and I asked her more and
more about it I was very curious and she
told me to come to her house and see
where she taught them which was on the
roof of her home so I came and this is
these are the slums that we passed by
right here and I remember just being
completely horrified that people were
living in these conditions and when we
met the kids they seemed so happy just
to have what they had even though it
wasn’t much at all and I really really
did want to do something but we were
leaving in two days back for Oklahoma
City which is where I’m originally from
and I didn’t feel like I could do that
much as one person but we went back and
I did what I could and so I went through
our entire house completely ransacked it
and picked out all the extra pencils and
notebooks and art supplies and goodie
bags that we had leftover and my dad was
going back in a couple months so
put them all in a bag and I sent it to
him and I said dad please please just
gives these kids but I have at my house
you know I can’t really do much and the
pictures we got back were just so
incredible these kids the happiness on
their faces from getting just pencils
that are decorative with like beautiful
erasers or just they’re seeing colored
pencils for the first time just that
happiness I just I couldn’t explain it
and I wanted to share it with people and
I just I was young though so I just did
what I would as a ten-year-old and I
went to my friends and I went to some
teachers that I liked and I just kind of
told them about it and soon we started
sending these packages these care
packages every couple every few months
just my friends and I and just the local
people we had but I wanted to do more
because I knew that if I was getting
such support from just my group of
friends how other people would respond
and so there’s this nonprofit in
Oklahoma City it was called om RA for
Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation and
one day I was reading the newspaper I
don’t know why I don’t really read the
newspaper honestly I found this like a
little clipping and it was like teen
leaders in philanthropy looking for like
applicants for om RF and this was
something I had heard about because it’s
very well-known in Oklahoma City and
it’s just this program that they have
it’s very selective it usually only
takes upperclassmen in high school to
teach them that ins and outs of a
non-profit and to teach them how to make
connections and how to fundraise and
it’s something I really wanted to do so
even though I knew I didn’t really have
a shot at it I tried and I got in and
like I’m right there this I should know
um so then the first step I did was I
went to my school community I went to my
Chapel and I gave a chapel talk that
very first time and I told them I them
about these children when I wanted to
help and from the first time we raised
over 40,000 rupees if that tells you
anything
the usual wage every single day for an
average person in
is a hundred rupees which is like a
dollar 50 so we even by raising over
$700 we were able to install a computer
vocational Center with laptops for these
kids to keep up with our increasingly
connected world which is just absolutely
incredible something they weren’t ever
exposed to before and so I just do
different things like this and it got
bigger and bigger and then soon I went
just from my state to different states I
started spreading the word so I was a
camp counselor this summer and a lot of
kids would leave their clothes and the
cabins not sure if any of you have been
to camp but like a lot of kids just kind
of leave everything and a lot of the
times those clothes are really dirty so
goodwill and things don’t want to take
those clothes because they’re actually
nasty they’re like dirt they’re actually
dirt covered and so I went and I
realized wow like kids in India a lot of
these kids they wouldn’t come because
Nathan day would teach on top of her
roof and in the winter they didn’t have
the clothes to want to come because they
would just get too cold it was just bad
weather for them so I saw these clothes
and I thought wow I can take them and
use them so I brought them all home
trash bags Vonn trash bags and I washed
all these clothes and folded them and
then this winter when we went to India I
brought it to them and the smiles on our
faces were just I can’t even
it was amazing ginger girthy has really
expanded from when we first started if
you’ve seen it now we have over 60 kids
that come every day after school other
community or other organizations have
gotten involved on the left if you can
see that we have a local teacher who
dislikes teaches karate and he went I
want to teach these the older kids
karate so they have like something
wholesome to hold on to and he even
teaches the girls like self-defense
which is really important and just not
only that we’ve had a lot of kids go
through this program who have just done
incredible things we had a girl just
recently who got into an accelerated
computer programming like program which
was incredible and we’ve had to go into
engineering
but not only that I feel like on a very
human level there are other like little
accomplishments that we have almost
every day there’s one girl who’s about
to get married off when she was 13 and
we convinced her parents to keep her in
school and to study her and study and
keep her education going we taught them
the importance of education which is
very important or there is another child
that I met this winter and he was such
an incredible artist but he hadn’t gone
to school for a few years because
there’s a sickness in his family which
left them penniless and he had to work
to help his family get out of that
poverty but they’d he had just gotten
admission into school last week which is
really incredible so this winter I went
to a place called fatehpur sikri which
is this really important city and it’s
beautiful and it was founded by the
great Mughal emperor Akbar and then
there’s a place called bull and the Raza
which is this beautiful like gateway on
the left and it’s to get into the palace
inside in the tomb where a clerk is
actually buried so we went there and I
loved it but there’s this one thing that
kind of ruined that so on the left
this was the cart that we had to take to
this horse cart that we had to take to
get there there’s a child there he’s
about nine years old and he was working
and that really unsettled me and then if
you see that’s my brother and I and you
can see these kids that were just kind
of running around or trying to sell you
things while you were there and there
was this one child in particular I
remember he was about like this tall he
was tiny
he was probably six years old he didn’t
have shoes on and he kept following my
family around and asking hey like can I
recite these poems for you it’ll only be
like five rupees I swear like I can do
it and he this kid seemed really bright
to me he seemed really persuasive and so
I asked him I said hey are you in school
and he said I used to be in school but
my school was for impoverished children
who run by French missionaries and I was
at the top of my class in math too but I
didn’t know French so they didn’t pass
me and then they took me out of school
so I could earn money for my family and
then I said okay can you show me like
what math you know can you say your
times tables and he was like yeah I can
say my time
tables and then like alright can you do
for me and he started rattling off his
like times tables up to twelve just like
quicker than I could do quite honestly
and it’s like while he was doing it this
like crowd of tourists started like fall
like just circling around him and that
day he got more money than he ever would
sing those poems and I saw the spark in
his eyes that wow education is important
I can do something with my education
people can understand that and so the
problem is obviously still there there’s
so many children out there like these
kids who are still working who haven’t
learned the importance of education just
because they don’t have the luxury to do
so so I want to leave you all with this
even if you think that you really can’t
do anything and you’re just one person
if you’re passionate enough about
something that takes one person to
change the world and you can easily be
that one person thank you
[Applause]
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