RANCHO CUCAMONGA >> Millions of kids watch YouTube star Kid President, 11-year-old Bobby Novak, who seeks to inspire kids to “make the world more awesome.”
Valle Vista Elementary fifth-grader Dominic Paris is listening, specifically to one of Novak’s videos promoting his annual Socktober clothing drive.
“There was another school that did it,” said Paris, 10. “I thought ‘why didn’t our school do it?’”
So the next day at school, he asked his teacher and his principal, Luanne Weaver.
• Video: Dominic Paris wants you to donate socks to his #Socktober charity drive for the homeless
Now, 19 classes at the school are busily collecting new socks to donate to area charities, with the goal of each classroom collecting 100 pairs before Thursday’s deadline.
“I was hoping for us to get at least 1,000 pairs and we’ve already reached that goal,” Paris said, an otherwise ordinary boy who dreams of pitching for the Dodgers one day.
Paris knocks his homework at an afterschool program, leaving him time to work on the drive, along with school counselor Jennifer Murphy.
“It was easy to say yes, because it was in good hands,” Weaver said. “The next thing I knew, it was a done deal.”
The socks are being donated to Foothill Family Shelter in Upland, along with Shoes that Fit in Claremont (which provides shoes and socks for needy children) and People Against Abuse and Neglect of Children International in Rancho Cucamonga.
Now that Paris has passed his goal of 1,000 socks, with three more days left to go in the drive, he’s aiming higher: “We’re trying to get to 2,000,” Paris said.
Paris’ Socktober ambitions will have more impacts than just the new clothing donated to some of the area’s neediest families.
“He’s really been an inspiration to some of the kids in his class,” Weaver said. Other Valle Vista have already started to come forward with their own community service project ideas.
In her capacity as school counselor, Murphy shows a video explaining the butterfly effect — the idea that something as small as the beating of a butterfly’s wings could whip up a wind strong enough to influence a hurricane.
“I explained to him that he is the butterfly effect,” Murphy said.
Pairs of new, never-worn socks can be donated at Valle Vista Elementary School at 7727 Valle Vista Drive in Rancho Cucamonga. The Socktober clothing drive runs through Thursday. For more information, call (909) 981-8697.
