8-year-old dedicated to helping homeless veterans starts company to give out "Hero Bags" filled with essentials
Eight-year-old Tyler Stallings is the son, grandson and nephew of veterans, and he's dedicated to helping those who have served. When he was just 4 years old, Stallings' mom, Andrea Blackstone, showed him a video about the plight of homeless veterans and he told his mom he wanted to build homes for vets.
She explained it would be difficult to build homes, but the 4-year-old was determined to help the men and women who have served. So the young boy from Maryland and his mom started their own company, Kid Time Enterprises LLC, and created "Give Back to Veterans Day" to raise funds to help vets in need.
First, he received a grant for $100 and put it toward making hygiene kits for elderly and homeless veterans, according to the Kid Time Enterprises website. He continued to raise money and put together hundreds of hygiene and grooming products, which were donated to homes for veterans.
For his second annual "Give Back to Veterans Day," Stallings raised over $1,000 from several donation sources. One of those sources was a book he had written a book, "Tyler Goes Around the World."
And to promote the effort, Stallings would dress up like the superhero from his book and collect donations. He used a portion of the proceed to buy supplies for homeless veterans and packed them up in what he calls Hero Bags.
"Hero Bags can be given to any veteran, but homeless veterans have received the most," his mom told CBS News. "They contain essentials... The hygiene kit is one part of it. This time of year, things to keep a veteran warm are included."
Stallings also started giving out Hero Boxes, which contain items that can't fit in bags or that weren't included in the bags because his charity couldn't afford them at the time, Andrea Blackstone said.
In just four years, Stallings has been able to donate thousands of dollars worth of clothes, hygiene products and other assorted items. He was even able to buy a new laptop for The Maryland Center for Veterans Education and Training (MCVET), so vets there could search for jobs, his website reads.
In addition to all of his fundraising and donating, Stallings gets to meet countless veterans. And helping homeless vets is just one of his charity passion projects. He also hopes to promote literacy, and to do so, he has given away 12,000 free books which he obtained through sponsors and grants.
Tyler refers to himself a "kidpreneur" and philanthropist — but to those he helps, he's a superhero.
