When I grow up, I want to be like Caine

With every day that passes, I want to be more like Caine Monroy. This is thanks to George Monroy for letting Caine do what he wanted with space, cardboard boxes and his imagination, Nirvan Mullick for being kind enough to document this young boy and for Caine himself, for insisting on a dream to have his own arcade.

The story in a nutshell is as follows: Two years ago, Caine asked his dad if he could use the leftover cardboard boxes from his used auto parts store to build his own arcade. His dad said sure. He built the arcade. He had his own t-shirt made, two offers for customers to play ($1 for 5 plays or $2 for a fun pass worth 500 plays), a system to give tickets when you win and even a security system to verify the authenticity of a fun pass… this is a 9 year old kid we’re talking about. All he was needing was customers… or at least A customer. In comes Nirvan Mullick one day because he needed a spare part for his car, sees the arcade, has his mind blown away and asks Caine’s dad if he could make a documentary… the video was made, it was submitted to festivals, and it went viral… Now there’s the Imagination Foundation, a non-profit organization to promote creativity among children, Caine has a scholarship to pay for his studies and people all around the world have jumped on board to do creative things with cardboard.

This is a kid who had a dream. Some people may say he brought it forth on a small scale and that if it weren’t for Nirvan, he wouldn’t have the recognition he has, and there may be a point somewhere within that commentary (although a stupid point I might add). The fact still remains, small scale or large… he brought his dream to life. He took an idea and turned it into something tangible. He did what the vast majority of the world doesn’t have the vision or the balls to do for their entire lives. He thought of something, said he wanted to do it, and did it.

For this alone, Caine is one of a handful of people I look up to in my life. So to Caine, here’s to you man. Going to East LA is officially on my Bucket List thanks to you and I hope I can do something as special as what you’ve created.

Cheers,

Ps.: I really hope you keep this up, because I’d love to see a full size cardboard arcade to promote creativity, green initiatives and education among young people. Think about it, instead of boring kids with lame textbooks, this could be the beginning of an integrated education movement where kids are shown how to create rather than bored with adult words that fail to entertain, communicate or educate.