Kids 4 Kids group aims to delight sick children

Editor's note: The following story has been edited to reflect the correct children's hospital in St. Louis to which Benny Arends donated. The Southeast Missourian regrets the error.

Benny Arends, 6, is a kid on a mission: to help entertain sick children.

How? By fundraising to collect toys, games and art supplies for patients at children�s hospitals.

�I don�t want kids to be bored and I want to follow God,� he said by phone Wednesday.

Melinda Arends, Benny�s mother, said he started Kids 4 Kids to accomplish exactly that about a year ago, when he was just 5 years old.

Benny Arends poses for a photo Friday to promote Kids 4 Kids.Fred Lynch

She said Benny was involved in a fundraiser for St. Jude Children�s Research Hospital at the time, and he asked her what St. Jude was.

�After discussing that a little bit, he said, �Well, aren�t they bored? I�m sure they are. These kids might die, and they�re gonna die bored.� He didn�t want anybody to die bored. That�s where it started,� she said.

Melinda Arends said Benny pondered it for awhile, then, when his birthday rolled around that summer, he asked his party guests to bring donations for patients at St. Jude instead of toys for him.

The response was great, Melinda Arends said, and at the beginning of September, they took a donation of about 1,100 items to St. Jude.

�As soon as we came back, we had a garage and bake sale,� she said. The money raised from that, just more than $130, went to Benny�s Kids 4 Kids organization.

Melinda said originally they�d wanted to donate just to St. Louis Children�s Hospital in St. Louis, that Benny had wanted to help other children in a different hospital, �but it was literally the week after, my contact from St. Jude emailed me with a list of urgent needs.�

They talked about it, Melinda Arends said, whether to help St. Jude or stick with the hospital in St. Louis. �He said �We�re gonna do both.� So we�re gonna do both,� she said.

Melinda Arends said she�s working with a law firm to establish their not-for-profit status, but as it is now, 100 percent of donations go toward purchasing supplies that go straight to the hospitals.

�We were not anticipating this being more than a one-time thing,� she said, laughing. �I thought this was a great service project. Then it expanded. Which is great, he�s following his heart, but we just were not prepared with the legality of it when we first started.�

A donation dropbox is going in at STA, a coffee shop at 820 N. Sprigg St. in Cape Girardeau, Melinda Arends said.

�It should be up for about a month,� she said, adding the dropbox they had last year went over well.

Benny Arends will do a Facebook Live video to launch it, too, she said.

�He loves doing those,� she said.

Mandi�s Art Club in Chaffee, Missouri, will host a fundraiser April 28. Each ticket sold means a $20 donation to buying supplies, Melinda Arends said.

And there�s the Kids 4 Kids of Semo Facebook page, she added.

They�re planning the next delivery in June, because several of the requests are for school supplies, �and we like to maximize the budget,� she said.

As of last week, they had 385 items to take, since they�d just bought some clearance Legos, Melinda Arends said.

�That stuff adds up quick,� she said, laughing.

And they still have plenty of adding to do.

mniederkorn@semissourian.com

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