With the “Put a Smile On!” project we plan to serve many communities. We plan to serve Cumberland, Maryland by visiting Lion’s Manor, Sacred Heart Hospital, The Allegheny County Nursing Home and Memorial Hospital. We will serve the Meyersdale and Hyndman Areas by walking in parades, going to the Maple Festival, walking around the town, going to sporting events and visiting restaurants. In 3 years we will be traveling to children’s hospitals around the United States to distract the kids away from the hospital atmosphere. With this project we will put an end to loneliness. 1.5 Percent of Americans commit suicide because they think that people do not care about them but with “Put a Smile On!” those people will realize that someone does care about them. This will NOT be one of those projects that go on for a few months and then never happen again because I will personally see that “Put a Smile On!” will be at an event AT LEAST once a month but probably we will go out a couple of times a week! This will be a great project that will reduce stress and hardships in our area and will also show people that someone cares and that all they need to do is Put a Smile On!

My “Put a Smile On!” project will make people smile and enjoy life! Many people in Senior Citizens centers and nursing homes often do not have family to visit them, get them groceries, talk with them or entertain them. I know that if I were stuck sitting in a bed for the rest of my life that I would like someone to visit me because even if someone came and talked with me then that would probably make me feel better. So with “Put a Smile On!” that is exactly what we will do. We once went to the senior citizens center in Hyndman, Pennsylvania and had a good time entertaining the people that eat there. They laughed at the jokes that we told them even if the jokes were about being old! When they had on a smile then we had on a smile!(Which was most of the time!) We also hope to visit hospitals. One day we hope to get enough money and costumes to go to the Children’s Hospital in Pittsburgh to entertain the kids that are less fortunate than us. We will definitely visit hospitals in the Cumberland area and visit people who are either sick or have a loved one sick. We will either entertain them or we will just talk to them. We also are going to visit restaurants in the area and sit down with people who are by themselves. I am sure that the people that we sit with will be glad that we take the time out of our schedules to sit down and talk to them because they have no one to eat with.

The “Put a Smile On” Project is talked about through the community as being “a wonderful idea” and my friends have said that they will help me but we need money! The first step that we will take in building our project is to become a non-profit organization. If we became a non-profit organization then we could receive a lot of money. We have looked on many corporate websites for funding for our project but all of them require you to be a 501(C)(3) non-profit organization but the expenses for a lawyer to do the paperwork and for the fee to get the paperwork looked at by a government official costs a lot of money. As soon as we become a non-profit organization then we could receive a lot of funding through these major corporations! After we become a non-profit organization then we will buy some of the costumes and buy some of the gift packages and go around the local area then we will buy more costumes and more gifts and go travel around the country to Children’s hospitals. When we are done visiting the children’s hospitals school will be starting back up and in our spare time we will go to parades, sporting events and walk around town greeting everyone we see and then when summer comes we start hitting the children’s hospitals again because there will be new kids to entertain. We will keep buying more costumes and more gifts and maybe even start having shows to raise money for the children’s hospitals!