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Video: Caine's Arcade Celebrates Anniversary of Epic Flash Mob
It's been nearly a year since what Caine Monroy calls the best day of his life: last October a flashmob showed up to his humble but impressive cardboard arcade at his father's car parts shop in Boyle Heights.
His rise to fame started when filmmaker Nirvan Mullick stumbled across the arcade on an errand to find a door handle. The video about the arcade snowballed into something much bigger than raising money for Caine's college tuition. Caine flew out to Cannes for International Festival of Creativity, and he's been even featured in Forbes as an entrepreneur.
Caine's life has changed dramatically—for the better, his father says: "Caine has really come out of his shell. He talks to everybody freely now. He doesn't stutter anymore and he's doing way better in school."
In the meantime, Mullick has worked on creating a foundation that he says would help creative kids just like Caine: "One of the things I learned from this experience is how a small gesture can change the life of a child. And to think that there's so many other kids like Caine out there, who just need someone to come in and buy a Fun Pass...so we started the Imagination Foundation."
Mullick says the mission of the foundation, which has received funding from the Goldhirsh Foundation, is "to find, foster and fund creativity and entrepreneurship and creativity in kid's like Caine." Recently, it hosted a pilot program in schools. Students used cardboard to create an arcade like Caine's to learn about math, art, engineering and more.
Now the Imagination Foundation is calling October 6 (a year after the date of Caine's flash mob) a global day of play and hosting a Global Cardboard Challenge as a fundraiser for the foundation. For more information about the initiative check out the video above or the foundations's website.
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Related:
The 9-Year-Old Founder of Caine's Arcade Tells Us What It's Like to Be the Coolest Kid in America
Huge Crowd Turns Out to Play the Games at "Caine's Arcade"
Video: Jack Black's Kids Get Inspired By Caine's Arcade
Video: Meet 9-Year-Old Caine & His Handmade, Cardboard Arcade in East L.A.
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