Meet Jahkil Jackson: The Pint-Sized Philanthropist

Jahk­il Jack­son has become a huge inspi­ra­tion and hero through his phil­an­thropy work with the home­less, which led him to start­ing his own non-prof­it orga­ni­za­tion: Project I Am. Did I men­tion Jahk­il is only 10 years old?!? Accord­ing to the Chica­go Tri­bune, Jahk­il’s pas­sion for help­ing oth­ers was sparked at the age of 5 when he helped his great-aunt hand out chili and soup to the home­less. His sad­ness and empa­thy for those less for­tu­nate made him take action, and spear­head his own foun­da­tion to com­bat home­less­ness. With the help of his par­ents, Jahk­il has been able to dis­trib­ute “bless­ing bags” to home­less com­mu­ni­ties through his orga­ni­za­tion Project I Am. The apt­ly named bless­ing bags include: tooth brush­es, tooth paste, sham­poo, tis­sue, deodor­ant, soap, lotion, razors, gra­nola bars, bot­tled water, Band-Aids, socks, mints, mouth­wash, and even pon­chos for cold weath­er.

(PHOTO: Chica­go Tri­bune: http://www.chicagotribune.com/lifestyles/stevens/ct-life-stevens-wednesday-jahkil-obama-blessing-bags-0103-story.html)

Jahk­il’s effort to help those in need has not gone unno­ticed. Jahk­il was award­ed the 2017 Glo­ria Bar­ron Prize for Young Heroes, which grant­ed him $5,000 to use towards the cause of his choice, which was nat­u­ral­ly Project I Am. He has even received the atten­tion Pres­i­dent Barack Oba­ma, who praised him for his cre­ation of bless­ing bags, and meet­ing his goal of dis­trib­ut­ing 5,000 bless­ing bags to home­less com­mu­ni­ties.

(Pho­to: Yana Paskova/Getty Images https://www.bustle.com/p/obamas-tweets-about-good-news-in-2017-are-the-perfect-way-to-end-the-year-7736103/amp & Barack Oba­ma Twit­ter)

Not only has Jahk­il made a tremen­dous dif­fer­ence with Project I Am, he has tak­en his phil­an­thropic efforts to Hearth­land Alliance, one of the world’s major anti-pover­ty orga­ni­za­tions, by prepar­ing bless­ing bags to aid them their ini­tia­tives. In 2017, Jahk­il became a mem­ber of WE Inter­na­tion­al Youth Coun­cil which works to make the world a bet­ter place. When Jahk­il isn’t mak­ing a tremen­dous dif­fer­ence, he plays bas­ket­ball, tap dances, and even acts! In fact, he’s appeared in Fox’s “Empire” and NBC’s “Chica­go Fire”. Again, he’s only 10 years old!!!!

Jahk­il’s effort is inspir­ing and just goes to show that you can make a dif­fer­ence at any age. I don’t know about you, but when I grow up I want to be just like Jahk­il! If you would like to learn more about Project I Am and sup­port Jahk­il’s orga­ni­za­tion, be sure to vis­it by click­ing HERE.

Writ­ten By: Shae Rowe