An Upper St. Clair High School teen has enlisted the help of thousands of friendly Japanese monsters to bring smiles to the faces of those staring down real-life beasts like sickness, poverty and trauma.<\/p>\n
In what began as a school capstone project, 16-year-old Vikrant Kamat has flipped Pok\u00e9mon\u2019s \u201cGotta catch \u2019em all\u201d tagline on its head. His Happy Card Club<\/a> has donated more than 10,000 trading cards featuring the Japanese anime fantasy creatures solely to bring smiles to the faces of kids at places like UPMC Children\u2019s Hospital<\/a> of Pittsburgh in Lawrence\u00adville, Pittsburgh Public Schools, the Wilkinsburg-based Foster Love Project<\/a>, Children\u2019s Hospital of Philadelphia<\/a> and more.<\/p>\n \u201cI figured I might as well have fun with it,\u201d explained Kamat of rekindling his childhood love of the franchise for the project. \u201c(Donating the cards) makes me feel really happy because I remember when I was a child and we\u2019d go to Target for groceries and I\u2019d ask my mom to get me a pack of Pok\u00e9mon cards. Just the joy of \u2014 not even the value of the cards \u2014 but just opening them and feeling like I had a tangible product \u2014 I think that made me feel really happy. Now I\u2019m passing on that joy.<\/p>\n \u201cMost of these cards donated don\u2019t really have sentimental value to the owner, but to a child who may be feeling down, that card could give them a little boost in the day.\u201d<\/p>\n In between time spent studying, captaining his debate team and helping out his family while his mother deals with a health issue, Kamat has operated largely as a one-man show with advisory support from his parents and Upper St. Clair social studies teacher Dan Zelensky. He has diligently set about collecting donations via drives like the bin he has set up at Phantom Tattoo Studio, cold-email pitches to local card shops like CardCrate asking about unused bulk, and a bevy of individual donations from personal collections.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s definitely been hard, but I feel like it\u2019s taught me perseverance,\u201d said Kamat. \u201cWe just started in the Pittsburgh area, but now that it\u2019s branched out to Philadelphia, I feel like the limits are endless. I\u2019d hope to donate to almost every hospital across the nation.\u201d<\/p>\n Kamat takes time to repackage the cards in holographic bags and wraps them in stickered foil to maintain the feeling of ripping open a new pack, while also making sure to include a variety of cards that include a special find or two carefully placed inside protective sleeves.<\/p>\n Kelly Hughes, founder and director of the Foster Love Project \u2014 which serves about 4,000 kids moving through the foster care system a year \u2014 recently received a donation from Kamat to be placed in the nonprofit\u2019s free \u201cshopping\u201d center.<\/p>\n While it contains myriad basic necessities, it also features new, brand-name items to bring the kids joy and ease their transitions.<\/p>\n \u201cA lot of times when kids come in here, they\u2019re in a bit of a shell shock,\u201d explained Hughes. \u201cThey\u2019ve just gone through an extremely traumatic situation where they had to be removed from everything that was familiar to them, and so when they come to our center for the first time, they often don\u2019t know what to expect.\u201d<\/p>\n Upon receiving Kamat\u2019s pitch, she was immediately impressed.<\/p>\n Hughes said Kamat\u2019s donation was the first from a teen with such an initiative.<\/p>\n \u201cAll the work that he went to to package them up and collect them and really be concerned about kids that might not have access to the same things that he does, it was very cool that he took this on his own initiative and tried to give back some good into the world,\u201d Hughes said.<\/p>\n Hughes said she would be taking on more Pok\u00e9mon cards from the Happy Card Club in the future. When Kamat\u2019s cards hit the free store and a kid first observed them, she remembered, \u201cThe child\u2019s face really lit up and that he was very excited to kind of have that fun item available to him in the midst of being in such a difficult circumstance,\u201d said Hughes. \u201cWe know that when we get them goods, it doesn\u2019t change their situation, but we hope that we can bring them a little bit of light and joy and that they recognize that they are not forgotten, they are not a number in a system.\u201d<\/p>\n Currently, Kamat\u2019s goals are to continue expanding Happy Card Club\u2019s reach and scope while pursuing official 501(c)(3) status, as well as a relationship with the Ronald McDonald House.<\/p>\n This summer, he interned with state Rep. Natalie Mihalek\u2019s office because he eventually wants a career in government.<\/p>\n \u201cI think giving back is something I\u2019d be interested in,\u201d Kamat said. \u201cIn government, you sign laws, you advocate for what you think is right, and that has a direct impact on whether someone has a good day or not.\u201d<\/p>\n For now, though, he\u2019s just focused on making the biggest impact he can as a 16-year-old.<\/p>\n \u201cIdeally, I\u2019d like to go on for as long as possible,\u201d said Kamat. \u201cI feel like the joy of Pok\u00e9mon cards really isn\u2019t something that runs out.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An Upper St. Clair High School teen has enlisted the help of thousands of friendly Japanese monsters to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":270639,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[73,75,74],"class_list":["post-270638","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh-headlines","tag-pittsburgh-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/270638","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=270638"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/270638\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/270639"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=270638"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=270638"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=270638"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}