How many times have you opened your pantry and dug through stacks and stacks of years-old canned goods?
If Wylie’s Semaj Smith-Hodge, 11, had his way, you wouldn’t have this problem. Rather than going uneaten in your pantry for years, all those canned goods would be on the shelves at Wylie Christian Care … or eventually in the homes of people who need them.
It all started when one of Semaj’s friends was diagnosed with cancer. “Why not raise money,” he thought, “by collecting canned goods?” That very day, Cans for Cancer was born. At just 11 years old, Semaj is cutting through the red tape to start his official nonprofit, and in October he donated the money collected from canned goods to Children’s Medical Center in Plano.
“When parents have kids with cancer, they need a place to stay, or their kids want video games to play during treatment,” says Semaj’s mom, Trimone Hodge. “His biggest goal is to help kids and families.
But that’s not all.
After hearing about SLANT 45, Hodge knew her son could parlay his efforts into even more good deeds. And thus, We Canners was born. Same activities, different goal. Semaj
and his sister Choizen, 9, began trolling the neighborhood, leaving empty boxes on doorsteps and asking for canned good donations. The pair then redeems the canned goods for dollars, and those dollars go to Wylie Christian Care, a nonprofit that uses the money to help people pay their rent and electric bills (in addition to donating food to those in need).
“We’re in a recession,” says Hodge. “We need to get back to the basics. More people than you know don’t have food … and can’t even afford the minimum. We’re in Wylie; this touches our community.”
Hodge emphasizes the importance of volunteering for this generation. “We’ve gotten away from knowing what helps. It’s all about video games and TV and Justin Bieber … but kids don’t know that everyone’s not as fortunate as them.” She adds that if you start kids volunteering at a young age, they’ll be positioned to give back as adults.
And it’s not as though the kids are suffering through it. “[Semaj] says that when you help, you have swag.” Who couldn’t use some more of that?
