Mansfield sixth-grader’s philanthropic spirit inspires Katy Perry to donate $10K

At the age of 11, a sixth grader from Mansfield is already an inspiration for the singer Katy Perry.

Orion Jean, who started a campaign called “Race to Kindness,” recently appeared as Perry’s guest on an episode of the Ellen Show. While Perry listened carefully, Orion explained how he started an initiative by launching a series of projects to give back to his community. At the end of the interview, Perry announced to a grinning Orion that her Firework Foundation was donating $ 10,000 to its goal of “spreading goodness around the world.”

Perry, who had stepped in as the innkeeper, seemed impressed with Orion’s philanthropic spirit.

“All you have to do is google good news and your name will come up,” she said.

Orion made a huge difference in a short amount of time.

In July 2020 he won the National Kindness Speech Contest. He wanted to cash out his $ 500 prize pool up front to complete a series of challenges.

  • His first project was a Race to 500 Toys campaign that ran until August 2020 when he raised over 600 donations for Children’s Health Hospital. “The pandemic meant that toy donations were lower. I wanted to be able to give the kids something that would make them smile in these dark times, and what better way to make a child smile than a toy? ”He said Perry.
  • His second campaign was a race for 100,000 meals, and through food promotions and a partnership with Dallas-based nonprofit TangoTab, he raised nearly 101,000 meals through October and November 2020 for food insecure people who would have an even bigger impact and one of the biggest problems The one thing that plagued this nation and the world even before the pandemic was that many people did not have access to meals, ”he said.
  • His third project was Race to 500,000 Books, in which he hoped to collect books for children. ThriftBooks, an online used book seller, contributed over 300,000 books to the promotion. “I wake up with a book in hand and go to sleep with a book and I just wanted to share my love of reading and writing with as many people as possible,” Orion said.

Orion, who wrote a book, A Children’s Book About Leadership, credits much of his success to his family and his 5-year-old brother.

“I want to be able to show him that he can do anything he wants and I hope that I can let him know that he can do what he wants when he’s my age or older.” he said.

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