We were lucky to catch up with Ray Mohler recently and have shared our conversation below.
Ray , looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. What’s the backstory behind how you came up with the idea for your business?
My story begins when I was just four years old. I woke up one morning with pain in both of my hips and I couldn’t walk. My parents took me straight to the nearest hospital in New York, Cohen Children’s Medical Center. I was in the hospital for only eight hours, but it felt like days. Not only did I not know what was wrong with me, but I had nothing to do to pass the time. All I could do was sit there and worry while listening to other kids in pain. Unfortunately, I found out I had a rare hip joint disease called Legg-Calve-Perthes , but unlike so many other children, I was lucky enough to leave the hospital and rehab at home. I had to wear a brace on my legs for 12 hours a day for the next two years. I also couldn’t run or play any sports. When I was leaving the hospital and found out that other kids had to stay there for days or months or years, I couldn’t believe that after my experience. I had a natural deep feeling of gratitude that I was able to go home, and I wanted to do something for the kids that had to stay in the hospital. With my birthday being on Christmas Eve, I decided that I wanted to give my birthday and Christmas gifts to the kids at the hospital I received treatment at. After that first donation to Cohen Children’s Medical Center, I had such a great feeling and knew I wanted to do more. The following holiday season when I was about to turn six, I asked friends and family for toy donations, so that I could give even more toys. On top of my own toys, I was able to donate three times the amount from the year before. At this point my parents told me that they would support me giving back and helped me form a registered nonprofit organization. When it came to naming the nonprofit, we had no idea what to call it. However, when my parents were on the phone with their accountant to officially register the foundation, they looked down at an article highlighting the impact that I’ve had and it was titled “Little St. Nick Gives Back.” That sparked the idea to create the Little Saint Nick Foundation and 19 years later, we have inspired and helped over two million kids across the country and are just getting started.
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
Who We Are The Little Saint Nick Foundation (LSNF), a registered 501C3 non-profit organization, inspires kids in local communities to give back to those kids in need of a smile. We do this by providing simple Gift Bags to kids as they enter a hospital that are made by other kids. There is a special connection between kids of all ages that you can’t duplicate and a simple act of kindness amplifies this connection to a deeper meaning of giving.
The Beginning
The Little Saint Nick Foundation (LSNF) was founded in 2004 by Raymond
Mohler, Jr. at age six. Ray had a scary hospital experience as a child but was able to leave the hospital after one day. Feeling fortunate that he did not have a life-threatening nor permanent disease, but rather one that is treatable and fully
recoverable, Ray decided he needed to give back to the kids whom he left behind at
the hospital who were not as fortunate as he was. Ray’s mission – even at his young age – was to help relieve the fear, anxiety and isolation experienced by children related to a child’s hospital visit.
Our Mission
The Little Saint Nick Foundation (LSNF) mission is to create a positive
experience for kids in crisis through the compassionate power of a helping hand.
We deliver smiles to these kids by connecting them with kids in local communities that are inspired to give back. Through our promise of “Kids Inspiring and Helping Kids”™, the Little Saint Nick Foundation strives to lift kids up and realize their full potential.
Our Vision
The Little Saint Nick Foundation (LSNF) vision is to inspire kids to give back to
kids in need of a smile all around the world.
What Makes Us Different
We pride ourselves on kid-to-kid relationships. LSNF was started by Ray Mohler Jr. at age four. Ray grew this organization as a kid thinking about what other children in need would want during a time of crisis. Our programs are all carried out by kid volunteers that directly benefit children in hospitals. There is a special connection between kids of all ages that you can’t duplicate and a simple act of kindness amplifies this connection to a deeper meaning of giving.
Our Impact
Today, our goal is to carry out Ray’s giving passion by having kids of all ages
giving back to those in need of a smile. We center our impact in communities by
providing simple, anti-anxiety gift bags that contain items such as a coloring books, crayons, stuffed animals, pop it toys and a handmade get-well cards made by local kids that go to kids in need of a smile. These gift bags have an everyday impact by providing a positive distraction for patients, improving hospital employee morale, and empowering kids of all ages in communities to become future leaders. With our current resources, we inspire and help over 300 people in communities and hospitals every day of the year, spreading our movement of “Kids Inspiring and Helping Kids”™. LSNF seeks to expand our impact in the communities we serve by
establishing two-way partnerships with hospitals, businesses, and youth groups.
Our goal is to serve more kids in hospitals while empowering kids in communities to give back. Every $10 packs an anti-anxiety gift bag for one kid in the hospital. This also provides an outlet for one kid volunteer to pack a gift bag and hand write a get-
well card.
Positive Changes We Implement
Our immediate focus has been on hospitals where we have had considerable success changing the fortunes of patients, partners and participants. With our young
patients, the benefits are most pronounced helping to ease the anxiety that comes from being in a hospital. For our hospital partners, we’ve seen dramatic improvements in care-giver experience, employee satisfaction and community goodwill. And finally, for the kids and their parents who give their time and extend a helping hand to kids in need of a smile, we’ve seen young kids walk away from the experience both fulfilled and inspired to continue to be community service minded and lend a helping hand to those in need of a smile.
Who We Serve
LSNF seeks to partner with any organization that is serving kids in crisis. We work predominantly with hospitals in their emergency departments. However, we have also worked with pediatric behavioral health and outpatient facilities that have
been associated with hospital chains or are independent organizations. Our
commitment to each community partner is to help as many kids as we can in need of a smile.
What else should we know about how you took your side hustle and scaled it up into what it is today?
First off, I wouldn’t refer to our organization as a side hustle. Growing up, my family and I did what we could to give back to kids in crisis. My parents have operated an air conditioning and heating business for 30 years and growing up I stayed busy by going to school and playing travel hockey. Every year, we have a toy drive and one fundraising event. Naturally, the foundation evolved from simply visiting the hospital to deliver toys to granting major wishes such as an $80,000 home extension for a boy with cerebral palsy. During my senior year of high school, Nickelodeon featured me and the foundation in “The Halo Effect,” a documentary highlighting philanthropic teenagers focused on making a difference. In a 30-minute episode, they displayed everything that we’ve done throughout the years. I made my way down to The University of Tampa to start my journey through college. I had no idea what the future held for the Little Saint Nick Foundation and my parents were prepared for everything to fade away. Instead, the documentary inspired a 12-year-old boy from St. Louis, Missouri to email the foundation to ask if he could do what he saw on the show as he recently had his own hospital experience. I thought it was an amazing opportunity to see how another kid could give back as I did throughout most of my childhood. Thanksgiving break came around and I spent it in St. Louis where this boy organized an entire volunteer event with more than 100 kids and thousands of toys and gift bags for local hospitals in St. Louis. This was the moment that I saw the power of other kids coming together to give back to their peers who may be battling for their lives. I thought to myself, what if we don’t only help kids in crisis, but inspire kids of all ages to come together and give back to those in need? From there, I knew I wanted to take this organization and focus on this mission for the rest of my life. Seven months later, we had a business plan, a full board of directors, and our first-ever office in East Rockaway, New York.
Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?
I was finishing my senior year at The University of Tampa and suddenly, the COVID-19 pandemic brought the world to a halt. This was a shocking way to graduate and transition to focusing on running the organization full-time. The hospitals we partnered with became very strict with their operations due to the pandemic, but it became apparent how essential our gift bags were for their pediatric patients. The hospital can be a scary environment for anyone, especially a child, and now there was even more chaos because of the pandemic. Hospitals stopped receiving toy donations, but our gift bag program kept going. It was an eye-opening experience for us that even when the whole world gets turned upside down, a simple gift bag can make a difference for a child facing a physical or mental illness. This is when we decided to focus on expanding our gift bag program. Every drive and volunteer opportunity focused on enhancing the program. Kids of all ages come together to pack gift bags and make get-well cards. They have a localized impact on the lives of kids within hospitals throughout their community. Since establishing this as our main program, we’ve distributed more than 110,000 gift bags and are just getting started.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://littlestnick.org/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/littlestnick/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/littlestnick/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/little-saint-nick-foundation/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/littlest_nick
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@littlestnick