We were lucky to catch up with Carla Kaufman Sloan recently and have shared our conversation below.

Carla, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Let’s start with the story of your mission. What should we know?

In 2014 our eldest son was killed suddenly in an accident in our home swimming pool, in a rare freak accident. He was seven years old. During a lengthy lawsuit we discovered that the electricians had failed to ground the power to our pool, and the pool light and water was the conduit that electrocuted our son.

Immediately we started to get the word out that people should have their pool lights checked and my husband went to Tallahassee to campaign to get laws changed so high voltage pool lights were no longer legal, and lobbied for regulation changes concerning pool light inspection. It was a hard fought battle but we prevailed.

After that we decided the best thing to do to keep our son, Calder’s memory alive was to create a foundation in his name. We also included his little brother, our younger son, so he would feel connected to our mission and Caleb and Calder Sloan’s Awesome Foundation was born. Our mission evolved over the years from emergency aid, especially for children to grief support for kids facing the death of a sibling or loved one.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

Before this tragic turn in our lives we ran (and still run) a television media company called 2C Creative. 2c.tv Our background in marketing and story telling helped us get the word out about our foundation.

Along our own grief journey, we discovered that the death of a child leaves people at a loss as to what to say or how to behave, so in order to help others in grief we found organizations with similar missions and partnered with them. Most recently in April of 2024, we partnered with the Children’s Bereavment Center and the Miami Children’s Museum to create a day out for families in grief. This event coincided with what would have been Calder’s 17 birthday.

Starting a foundation from the ground up has different challenges because you need to be specific in your mission, but you can be swayed by the impulse to help everyone. It took us a few years to streamline and to focus on families in grief, especially children. We also wanted to keep Calder’s name alive since his life was cut short at seven years. As parents who lose children know, saying our kid’s names becomes important so they are not forgotten. One thing we have learned through this process is that it’s okay to talk about the children who have died. It may feel like you are reminding the parent that their child died, but that is something parents like us live with every day and we welcome talking about our children, and the memories from their lives so don’t be afraid to mention them.

We also chose Caleb and Calder Sloan’s Awesome Foundation and the tag line: adventure, laughter, kindness because it puts out a positive uplifting energy. Calder’s first grade self-portrait became the logo for the foundation after people started carrying it with them on various adventures. At one point celebrities and athletes were photographed with his drawing and it eventually ended up on a billboard in time square which blew us away.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

Our entire foundation was created from a place of resilience after the tragedy of losing our son and a need to create something positive in Calder’s memory. We knew we wanted Calder’s name to carry a positive energy. We also knew we wanted our younger son, Caleb, to live a life that includes giving back to the community and setting an example for other children, now teens.

We partnered with organizations in our community like the Galbut Family MBJCC on the Simkins Family Campus to create the UNLEASH YOUR AWESOME AWARD which recognizes an outstanding teen who embodies our ideals of kindness and caring. These teens are chosen for the work they take it upon themselves to do. These teens create their own programs to feed the unhoused, create clubs in their schools to empower students who feel left behind or different, as well as volunteering in the autism community. Each teen is an upstanding member of society and a self-starter. We are proud to recognize these teens who know that one small act of kindness can go a long way in a stranger’s life.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

We had to unlearn that we cannot be everything to everyone all at once.

This specifically happened after the hurricane that nearly destroyed Puerto Rico. We heard through a friend who grew up in Puerto Rico that there were families with babies who were cut off from formula and diapers and quickly facing malnutrition. This turned into one of our biggest relief efforts, with the help of Spirit Airlines we managed to raise money for and distribute plane-fulls full of life-saving foot supplies. Since our foundation is small and run by myself and my husband we had to step back and take into account how big our events could be. Luckily for us we had volunteers come in from all over the country and locally to man the warehouse and created packages for families in Puerto Rico. Then in December we threw the biggest holiday party with supplies from various clients from our company – 2C Creatve, like Warner Bros., Cartoon Network, and Lego to name a few, came through with tons of gifts. You can see the videos on our website at ccawesomefoundation.org.

While it was a huge success we had to reevaluate the magnitude of our events. We learned a valuable lesson while somehow pulling off a miracle thanks to all of our donors and volunteers. When you’re caught up in bringing hope and help to people everything else can take a back seat. It’s only in retrospect we could evaluate that this was a scale so large it was unsustainable.

Then a few years later Covid hit and our concern turned to children trapped at home unable to attend school and food insecurity. We again partnered up to do numerous food drivers to feed families. After Covid we were honored to be asked to appear on “The Kelly Clarkson Show” with Caleb who was eleven at the time. We were working with schools to put together summer back packs filled with materials for elementary students Caleb’s age at the time who had fallen behind due to Covid, as well as many school supply backpack distributions across America. Caleb charmed Kelly Clarkson with his wit, intellect and stories about helping other kids his age, which he told her he planned to do now and in the future. We are grateful that through all the hardship he has endured that he is a flourishing young man with a big heart. That’s another lesson we learned: the ups and downs of parenting after a tragedy of this magnitude.

My next project is to publish a book about grief and spirituality because it’s important for people going through a loss or tragedy to know the there are people who have run the gauntlet of grief and found that there is hope on the other side.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://ccawesomefoundation.org
• Instagram: ccawesomefoundation
• Facebook: Caleb and Calder Sloan’s Awesome Foundation

Image Credits

Carla Kaufman Sloan