The Little Red Wagon — Inspirational Story & Movie

There is an inspi­ra­tional film out (that opened in a select Phoenix-area & Tuc­son the­ater today) about a boy who started a move­ment fol­low­ing Hur­ri­cane Charley in 2004. Have you heard of the Lit­tle Red Wagon? In the wake of Hur­ri­cane Sandy & the dev­as­ta­tion on parts of the east coast, I think the movie & mes­sage are espe­cially topical.

{From the press release:} LITTLE RED WAGON is based on the inspi­ra­tional true story of eight-year-old Zach Bon­ner on his quest to change the world with noth­ing more than his beat-up red wagon and a blaz­ing spirit of phil­an­thropy. When Zach sets out to help home­less chil­dren in Amer­ica in the wake of Hur­ri­cane Charley, by walk­ing from his house in Tampa, Florida to the White House, he must over­come bureau­crats and blis­ters, and cap­ture the hearts of his frac­tured fam­ily and the entire nation.

I’ve had the chance to screen the film and it truly is amaz­ing what all this young boy has accom­plished. His efforts to help his com­mu­nity in the wake of the hur­ri­cane touched my heart. An amaz­ing heart for help­ing oth­ers at just age 8. But, to go on to start a foun­da­tion & then walk across the coun­try in an effort to help home­less youth is truly incred­i­ble! Here’s some background:

Zachary (just an 8th grader now) started doing com­mu­nity ser­vice in 2004 after Hur­ri­cane Char­lie hit Florida. In 2005 he formed the Lit­tle Red Wagon Foun­da­tion, a non-profit orga­ni­za­tion designed to help under­priv­i­leged kids with a focus on home­less youth. Zach believes we all the abil­ity to make a change in the world if we just try.

Isn’t that incredible?!

For more infor­ma­tion about the film, you can visit http://www.littleredwagonthemovie.com.  For those of you that are local in the Phoenix-area, the movie opened today, Novem­ber 2nd, at Harkins Super­sti­tion Springs The­ater in Mesa. You can find out what other cities have show­ings by vis­it­ing the website.

As a for­mer jr. high/high school teacher, I think this would be a GREAT film to share with that age group about com­mu­nity ser­vice, good cit­i­zen­ship, and what can be accom­plished when you really put your mind to it!

After see­ing the dev­as­ta­tion in New York and New Jer­sey in the wake of Hur­ri­cane Sandy, it would be won­der­ful if Zach’s mes­sage would inspire some to acts of com­mu­nity ser­vice there.

What inspir­ing sto­ries have you heard lately?