Walking home with her family after a hockey game one night, 11-year-old Caleigh Fagan of Moncton, N.B., saw a homeless man sitting alone who “looked very sad and not comfortable.”
The image stayed with her.
“She started saying, ‘I want to do something, what can I do?’” says Chandra Dempsey, Caleigh’s mother.
Using her own money, Fagan created “Caleigh’s comfort care kits,” portable care packages with essential items she could hand out to the homeless people in her community.
“My parents always say if you feel like it’s a good thing to put your money towards, you can do it,” Fagan says.
“I felt like that was a very important thing to put my money towards.”
Fagan also got her school, Lewisville Middle School in Moncton, involved by going to her teacher Mr. Bishop.
Fagan brought a three page proposal along, laying out costs, her objectives and ideas for fundraising and collecting items for the kits.
“She was really serious about this,” says Bishop.
Each homeroom class is putting together their own kits, with school activities such as PJ Day, Slipper Day and Jersey Day being coopted to collect items -- but more donations keep coming in.
“People are just leaving stuff at our door,” says Fagan. “Nobody even knows who it’s from.”
