Hello everyone. I thought I would write about myself, if you're wanting a new friend. Who knows, I may fit the part pretty nicely. Also, I would simply like opinions on what you think about my life. I want to know if I am on the right track.
I was born September 24th, 1997, right on the outskirts of a city in Ohio. I was born into a poor family, which survived on quite little, but we had a pretty decent house. I only know of it due to home videos and pictures from the time I was a baby.
A few years after my little brother and I were born, my dad began to steal CDs from my mother, sell them, and buy drugs. The moment my mother found out about this, at my young age of four, she ( and my two older sisters and younger brother ) moved to my grandmother's place about 60 miles away and filed for divorce. There we stayed for about two years.
It was a small place, but we had enough room for everyone. The special little thing about it was that my grandma was the owner of a bar. It wasn't a place with bad reputation, like most people think of bars, but it was more-so a friendly place to meet buddies at. The only problem was the music bouncing the upstairs apartment and keeping us from sleeping.
Away from the details of the bar apartment, now. When I was six, we moved to a little house about half a mile away from my grandma's bar. It was a pretty comfy place, but still kind of small. My sisters were getting more devious than usual when we moved there, and my mother met a new guy. He was pretty alright, but extremely strict. He ended up cheating on her two years later and he was kicked out.
A year later, we got a dog named Cloe. She was a very beautiful Alaskan Malamute, which I still have today, if you're wondering at all. When we got her, she was the closest thing to me. She would randomly pounce on me when I was laying down, which was always funny, and she would comfort me when I was hurt. Sadly, her shedding had my mom going insane, so she became an outside dog. I don't really play with her as much as I want to now..
Yet another year later, my school field trip was to the zoo. It bored me a lot, actually, until we got to the big cats. They were the best things I had ever seen into my life. Last, but definitely not the least, we got to the lion enclosure. They were the greatest animals I had ever seen! No offence to my dog, but I rather have a lion cub. Anyways, the little information tablet in front of the enclosure said these wonderful things are diminishing in numbers at a possibly-extincting speed. This scared me to death! I would never want that to happen to such majestic creatures.
On the bus ride back to school, I told my friends I was going to help save the lions. Of coarse, they laughed at me and acted as if I was joking. I wasn't. At the young age of 9, I began a bake sale, which began with no funding from my parents or any other individuals but myself. I started with the great total of 15 dollars. I started advertising around my hometown about the " Save the Lions! " food sale I was going to be doing every Sunday. It began pretty decent. I had created three cakes, spending about 12 dollars on the ingredients, and ending up with 30 dollars from generous buyers.
My mom was very doubtful of my ability to carry this through, and believed I was just going through a stage for my age. She seemed to ignore requests I had made for her to get me ingredients, so I began to mow lawns for extra money for these things. I ended up getting about 200 dollars that week, which was really good for nine years old, and is probably still over average for my age now. With $200, I was able to create a LOT more than I had previously made with the first 15 dollars I had. I created about.. 50 cookies, 10 cakes, and 2 pans of brownies. I would had made more, but that was all I had time to make. That Sunday's sales were pretty bad.
I had made the grand total of 20 dollars that day, even though I spent near 50. I only sold fresh food, so I ended up giving away plenty of it to family, who generously donated to me an extra 10 dollars for my effort. My mom continued to doubt me though, and told me to give up. She believed that I was just too immature to do this kind of thing. I ignored her, and am I glad I did.
The next Sunday was probably the luckiest day of my life so far. Little did I know, one of my buyers was the owner of a local McDonalds a few miles off. He never did told me, but the way I found out amazed me. A few weeks later, he came back and asked me if he could sponsor my bake sale. Of coarse, I had no clue what it meant to be sponsored, and he told me I'd figure out, and to make a lot more than I had made that day, so I did.
With my neighbor's help ( She's a zoologist.
), we made about.. 200 cookies ( Peanut Butter and Chocolate chip mixed ), 20 cakes, and 20 pans of brownies. The McDonalds owner came through to his promise, and I sold out. The grand total I made from that day? 2,000 dollars. That's rounded down too. I promised the zoologist 10% though, so she did the math and got 200 dollars of it. I guess it covered the electric bill from the oven I almost broke. Silly me. :3
My mom almost fainted at the amount of money I made that day. She commanded me to put it in the bank for college, but I simply told her " No. " She was extremely mad ( Jealous of ) at me, and told me I couldn't do the bake sale anymore. Of coarse, I told my neighbor of what happened, and she promised she would do it for me for free.
A few weeks later, she had a grand total of 3,000 dollars. The amount of money she was getting was decreasing every week. I begged ( Yes, on my knees ) my mom to let me start doing it again. She always said no, so I continued it to the point as to where she was going insane. I did it everywhere she went, I called her while she was at work, and she eventually gave in. The moment she did, I didn't do much. I put more signs out on telephone polls around the city, since the previous ones were ruined from rains, and got back to work with my neighbor.
I've been doing the bake sale for four years now, with the help of my neighbor. We have had plenty of new customers, plenty of old, and I think we work well as a team. We currently average out about 5,000 dollars every month, which is more than a normal person makes on average. The catch? None of it is for me. All of it goes to the lion reserves in Africa. We have currently made 230,000 dollars, which is all in my very own bank account. I plan to send it out when I graduate from High School. Only in 9th grade right now, but the days are flying by faster than ever. I am planning to go and find more sponsors in my town. The more money to " Save the Lions, " the better.
What do I want to be when I grow up? A lion behaviorist in my own reserve in South Africa. That's a dream I hope I can someday catch. Anyways, that's my life. Simple and straight-forward, hope you liked it.
PS. Please leave comments. I like knowing that people actually read the whole thing, since I know it's pretty long and not like some of the other posts on this forum.
