blake

It’s never too early to start helping people in your community. Blake Ansari is proof of that.

The six-year-old New York City resident, with the assistance of his parents, helped collect books that he plans to give the city’s homeless children. His next goal is to open a library.

From Blake’s profile on The Atlantic Cities:

The first-grader, who attends the Metropolitan Montessori School on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, had been thinking this winter about other kids in his city, kids who didn’t have the kind of life he has. Homeless kids.

Late last year, Blake started to understand that some children in New York City didn’t have a place to live, and were sleeping with their families in shelters or on the streets. There are a lot of homeless kids in New York these days, about 22,000 of them by most recent count, more than at any time since the Great Depression. And the number has been going up.

Read more at The Atlantic Cities

Blake’s dad, Nuri Ansari, develops programs for the formerly incarcerated and homeless.

To help Blake better understand the issues, his mother, Starita Boyce Ansari showed him a  multipart New York Times story about Dasani, a homeless girl that was released in December. As a result, Blake immediately became concerned about children living in substandard shelters.

Kudos to Blake and his parents for their astounding effort.

 How are you working to help your community?

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