When I was seven years old, I remember thinking that I’d figured out the “trick” behind what you should do when you meet a wish-granting magical being and submitted a book report where I said that if a genie granted me three wishes, I’d wish for more wishes.
When Zach Bonner was seven years old, he founded a non-profit organization, walked 280 miles from Tampa to Tallahassee in Florida, and raised over $25,000 in supplies and donations to aid homeless children.
Guess which of the two of us has optioned the rights to an autobiographical movie about his life?
According to The Hollywood Reporter, the John Templeton Foundation through the Philanthropy Project and Anonymous Content has hired David Anspaugh (Rudy, The Game of Their Lives) to direct a film about Bonner’s life and his non-profit organization Little Red Wagon. Patrick Sheane Duncan (Mr. Holland’s Opus) is currently writing the screenplay and filming is to start in the spring to coincide with Bonner’s latest project, a “walk across America” to raise more funds to aid homeless children.
I’ve been thinking about non-profit organizations lately and I recognize that there are so many types. My experiences have mostly been with groups who form educational NPOs so that they can put on anime conventions, and after four years of doing volunteer work at a senior staff level, I can definitely say that anyone who gets paid to work for an NPO is indeed doing “real work.”
That Bonner—who is now 13—is still interested in non-profit work and his cause bodes well for the strength of his character, and I hope that he gets through his teenage years with that same character intact.
There is no word yet on who would be cast in the principal roles.