Connor’s Kindness Project: 12-year-old donates 50 ‘Kindness Kits’ to kids at UMass Memorial

Connor Wright of Lynnfield may only be 12 years old, but he’s already making a difference for many kids in Massachusetts with a project meant to spread joy and give back during the hard times of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Connor’s Kindness Project (CKP), a nonprofit started by Connor in 2020 amid the pandemic, has a goal to “remind us that there is good in the world even at times when we are faced with conflicts and challenges.”

Sharon Marrama, Connor’s grandmother and CKP’s executive director, said the organization recently expanded its mission to deliver “Kindness Kits” in central Massachusetts, starting with a delivery of 50 such kits to children at UMass Memorial Medical Center in Worcester.

The goal of the kits is to entertain and comfort kids in difficult situations such as stays in hospitals and shelters.

The grandmother and grandson duo were inspired to make their own homemade care packages for kids from work they did with the Natick-based charity Birthday Wishes. That group traditionally puts on birthday celebrations for children in shelters, but modified their services to a “birthday-in-a-box” alternative due to the COVID-19 pandemic - essentially all things one would need to throw a birthday party, enclosed in a box.

To encapsulate kindness in their own kits, Connor hand-selected various items for kids in need including lego sets, Bombas brand socks, etch a sketches, Play-Doh, coloring books, crayons, slime, Pop Its and Foldscopes.

Connor and his grandmother are no strangers to giving back to the community. The project started when Connor picked up on the stress of others toward the start of the pandemic, particularly healthcare workers, and asked his family what he could do to give back, according to Marrama.

Marrama and her grandson started making self-care packages for adults in healthcare and COVID care packages filled with trinkets for children locally who were sick or in isolation from the virus.

The good deeds continued to evolve from other initiatives, such as holding a clothing drive to benefit the nonprofit Catie’s Closet, into something more formative that would become the full-fledged Connor’s Kindness Project nonprofit.

“So every time we did something, he started to say, what else can we do?,” Marrama said of Connor. “He decided to invest more time and energy to grow and move his kindness initiative to the next level and reach out to local shelters and hospitals — his idea was well received.”

Connor did a lot of the research himself into these nonprofits to partner with, his grandmother said.

January 2022 Connor's Kindness Project Donation to UMass Memorial — Connor Wright, 12, donates "Kindness Kits" to children at UMass Memorial Medical Center in Worcester in January of 2022 through Connor's Kindness Project (CKP).

In 2021, CKP worked with charities, shelters and hospitals including Ronald McDonald House, Tufts Children’s Hospital, Christopher’s Haven, Shriners Children’s Boston, and The Home for Little Wanders to deliver over 200 kits to kids in need.

This year, CKP, based north of Boston, has a goal to deliver more than 1,000 kits, including in central and western Massachusetts and hopes to continue to expand in these communities in the coming years, according to Marrama.

CKP’s pivotal expansion into Worcester County began when Connor, an active hockey player for the Boston Junior Eagles, and his parents, having connections in the hockey world, were able to link up with Mike Myers, the Chief Operating Officer of the Worcester Railers hockey club.

Connor had reached out to Myers and they set up a holiday ornament drive to raise funding in the lobby of the Fidelity Bank Worcester Ice Center.

“It prompted us to think about, OK, well, this was a community that’s embracing us. So let’s give what we made back to this community,” Marrama said about the successful Worcester fundraising haul.

CKP then reached out to UMass Memorial Medical Center in early December, whose pediatric team was receptive to their idea and welcomed them with open arms at a recent donation this January.

While hospital restrictions due to COVID-19 prevented visitors like Connor and his grandmother from entering the medical center when they came to donate the kits, the pediatric staff and faculty came outside to them to celebrate CKP’s generosity and formally accept the donation, according to Kendra Frederick, the manager of the Child Life Program at UMass Memorial.

Once the kits were inside and delivered however, Frederick said that patients and their families who received kits were “truly appreciative and inspired by Connor’s kindness.”

“There were many happy faces when patients were given these kits full of gifts,” Frederick said. “Children learn and cope through play and it’s important to maintain that normalcy in the medical environment.”

“Many of the items in the kits - such as the pop it toys - can also serve as coping tools when children have to endure painful medical procedures,” Frederick added.

Kindness Kit Recipients at UMass Memorial Medical Center

The donation from CKP to UMass Memorial went so well Marrama said the nonprofit has committed to providing the hospital kits on an ongoing basis.

Frederick added that CKP is welcome back any time and that the hospital and its staff “look forward to a continued partnership.”

The warm reception has propelled CKP to want to do more for communities in Central and Western Massachusetts, Marrama said, adding that these communities are sometimes less well-served than their metro Boston counterparts.

CKP will continue to work with children in Boston area hospitals and shelters, Marrama said, though with a goal to get kindness kits to every child in hospitals and shelters there.

CKP has also begun communications with Shriners of Springfield and wants to seek out shelters in the western portions of the state to work with as well.

“We don’t want to be the person that just delivers the kit, to the shelter or to the hospital and never returns, we want to have an ongoing relationship with every single one of them,” Marrama said.

When CKP expands into a new area, Marrama said it looks to partner with local businesses from car dealerships, to realtors and community banks, who help provide funding for their initiatives. Individuals can also donate directly to CKP on their website.

Families across the state whose children have been the recipients of CKP’s initiatives have reached out to Connor and his family expressing their gratitude for CKP’s cause.

In quoted messages Marrama shared with MassLive, one parent described how CKP’s kindness kit made that family’s daughter’s “very scary day” at UMass Memorial “so much brighter as soon as she saw the box,” adding that it “put the biggest smile on her face.”

A different family, whose son was undergoing laser surgery for a burn at Shriners Children’s of Boston, said the kit they received was “like it was hand-picked just for him.” The family added the items within helped brighten their day following the boy’s surgery and helped keep him entertained for a three-hour car ride back home from the hospital.

Marrama said that while she and Connor are close to begin with, working with Connor over the past two years through CKP’s initiatives has allowed her to impart valuable lessons on her one grandchild.

“I think what it has done is it’s enabled me to share my love of giving with him, and hope that’s something that he carries with him through his life,” Marrama said. “That’s really my goal.”

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