We were lucky to catch up with Catalina Campos recently and have shared our conversation below.

Catalina, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. So let’s jump to your mission – what’s the backstory behind how you developed the mission that drives your brand?

I created the CIRCUL KC when I was 10-years-old. I was just three years old when I held my first volunteer project; candy canes for Seniors. That same year i received the title, Miss. Armour Oaks Community Service Project, for raising $25 for Armour Oaks Senior Living Community in Kansas City, Missouri. As time went on candy canes turned into door hangers and much bigger items. Fastforward to 2021, my mom and Stepdad became concerned with the education I was receiving in public school. I was having issues with bullying and with my ADD, all the distractions in the classroom made retaining information tough. My mom and stepdad decided to give homeschool a try, my mom left her position as Director of Human Resources in a non-profit senior living community and I said goodbye to public school. The change made it difficult for me to give back to the Seniors, but I still managed to visit every Veterans Day to pass out something to all the Veterans. As time went on, I began to have more “FREE” time. I began creating new ways to give back to those in need. I started visiting local cemeteries to clean gravesites overgrown with weeds and grass, picking up litter in local parks and visiting local Senior Facilities during the holidays to pass out cards and candy. I wanted more kids to help seniors, just like I was helping. I saw that seniors didn’t have things they needed like, clothes, shoes and personal items. So I wanted to create a place where seniors could get things they needed for FREE. My family thought all these ideas were just my ADD brain doing its thing, but they were wrong. I was serious about this and going to make it happen. I started thinking of ways to pay for my mission and make it happen.
I stared sewing sock monkeys and selling them to family and friends, I held a bake sale. I even started my own trash service, for $2 I would pull your trash can to the street and return it on trash days. Despite all my efforts it wasn’t brining in the money I needed to make my idea come to life. My family saw how important this was to me and hard I was working to make this happen. So they decided to help me. They discussed ways to bring my mission to life without breaking the bank and explained to me what a non-profit business was and that this maybe be the best route. They told me it wouldn’t be easy; it would be lots of hard work, there would be no more sitting around watch tv or playing with friends, this was going to be a REAL JOB with REAL responsibilities and THERE WAS NO QUITING. After much consideration and education, I decided to go all in! Receiving investments from my family and friends the CIRCUL KC was created by Me, Catalina Campos, just a 10-year-old girl from Raytown, Missouri.

Catalina, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

Our main goal at the CIRCUL is to help Senior Citizens. We do this with our Grandparents Closet, it like a store but everything is free. We collect unwanted items form the community and give them ti Seniors. We found there were items that Seniors couldn’t use so we decided to start other projects to give those items to those in need. For example, our FETCH project is where we collect items for animals and give them to nonprofit animal shelters like chain of hope or Midwest animal rescue. But what sets us apart is our Homeschool Enrichment Program. Our goal is to BRIDGEG the Intergenerational Gap, we do this by finding Seniors in our community to help lead our classes, to pass down their knowledge and skills to our youth. Our Garden club is led by a Senior man in Raytown, Bill. Bill lets our class use his huge backyard garden for hands on learning. He also teaches us about all kinds of things like tractors, pest that are good and bad for your garden, when to plant and when to clean out. We have learned so much from him, even my mom has learned stuff from him. This is what makes us different, we are bridging the gap between our seniors and our youth. Passing down knowledge and skills that are being forgotten.

Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?

Our social media is pretty cool, If you go look on our website and facebook page, I think we have close to 700 followers. We got that in just 8 months and the crazy thing, my friends and I run the social media pages! Crazy huh? My mom has some background in marketing, she spent weeks teaching us how to use digital design platforms and how to reach people by just one post. We creat the images, or send her our ideas then she reviews them and helps us with grammar and wording. There are 4 kids who run our facebook page, we all have diffrent days we do it. My mom is the reason we are successful on the social media plateforms. She will be holding a digital media class for kids next semester, just fyi.

Have you ever had to pivot?

Well, I was 10 when I started the CIRCUL KC, so there is a lot of pivoting going on over here. But the big thing I had to learn was how to be a leader. I can take charge and get things done, I guess you can say I’m kind of controlling, I get that from my mom. My mom started noticing that i was always taking the lead on projects and never allowing any of the other kids to take on tasks. Then I would be overwhelmed and stressed out. She also noticed if one of our youth didn’t do something the right way or the way i did it, i would get upset. So like any mom does, she had a “TALK” with me. She explained that i was a leader now, and i had to start acting like it. She taught me that as a leader I allow others to take on tasks while i stand back guiding and supporting them. If they need help, they will ask. She also taught me something that i will probably remember forever. As a leader, if my team fails , I fail, so making sure all our volunteers and CIRUCL Kids succeed is a reflection on me. I’ve learn that i cant be in control of everything, that I can let others take the lead on things and support them and guide them, because if the fulfill a mission , I fulfil that mission, the CIRCUL fulfills that mission. Its not about being front and center, its about allowing others to grow and feeling that reward when they feel accomplished.
So yeah, thats a lot for an 11 year old to take in, but I’m still a work in progress and I’m ready to be the leader I know I can be.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.thecirculkc.org
• Instagram: circul_kc
• Facebook: Circul KC
• Twitter: @CIRCULKC
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@CIRCULKC

Image Credits

My Mom took the photos