As the world grappled with the pandemic in 2020, Orion Jean saw a void and took action to fill it by collecting 100,000 meals for families in need. Within two years, he donated over 500,000 meals and has been named TIME’s Kid of the Year for 2021.
Jean, from Mansfield, Texas, started his “Race to Kindness” initiative at the age of 10 after watching families lose their jobs and access to food as the pandemic swept the nation. He was encouraged by a teacher to participate in a speech contest and to use the prize money to start a kindness initiative. Jean won $500 and started donating to people in need. His first significant initiative was to collect 100,000 meals to help combat food insecurity.
Word of his efforts began to spread, and jewelry designer Kendra Scott joined to help Jean raise money to cross the finish line to 100,000 meals. Jean exceeded the mission by donating 500,000 meals.
Now, at 11-year-old Jean is TIME’s second annual “Kid of the Year.” Sitting on Zoom with actress and humanitarian Angelina Jolie, he explained why it was vital for him to help families and continue spreading kindness.
“Kindness is a choice, and while we can’t force others to be kind, we can be kind ourselves and hope to inspire other people,” Jean told Jolie. “So many people have great ideas but never act on them…Someone told me that you have to find something that breaks your heart to really get out there and make a difference in that area. And I want others to know that they can start today.”
Elsewhere in the interview, Jolie asks Jean about his love of reading and his new initiative of bringing books to what he calls “book deserts.” Jean teamed up with corporations to collect books to service book-scarce areas. “I’ve always been trying to get my friends to like, you know, ‘Read this book with me!’ or, ‘We’re gonna do like a mini book club,’ or something,” said Jean. “But now that I have the platform, I wanted to be able to reach more people, and to me, literacy is something that can get you off the ground.”
Orion was one of the thousands of kids submitted for the honor of Kid of the Year. Parents, teachers, and friends nominated kids between ages 8 and 16 who actively make the world a better place.
TIME partnered with Nickelodeon for a television special about the campaign, and they scoured social media and school districts in search of kids doing extraordinary things. Representatives from the Special Olympics and Laureus Sport for Good Foundation USA were on the advisory committee.
Kids also played a part in selecting TIME’s “Kid of the Year” — others on the voting committee included Nickelodeon’s Alaya High, better known as That Girl Lay Lay; Dylan Gilmer of Tyler Perry’s Young Dylan; and Wolfgang Schaeffer from the Loud House. TIME worked with television host Trevor Noah to narrow down the finalists and select the 2021 Kid of the Year.
The finalists for TIME’s Kid of the Year for 2021 were environmental activist Cash Daniels, 12, from Chattanooga, Tennessee, Mina Fedor, 13, from Oakland, California, who organized a rally to raise awareness about anti-Asian hate during the pandemic; DJ and anti-bullying advocate Samirah Horton, 13, from Brooklyn; and inventor Lino Marrero, 15, from Frisco, Texas.