Jahkil Jackson and the Blessing Bags That Started at a Chicago Kitchen Table

Jahkil Jackson was about five years old when his aunt took him along to hand out food to people experiencing homelessness in downtown Chicago during the winter. Chicago winters are hard on anyone who has to spend them outdoors, and the experience stayed with him.

According to his organization's own account, that outing is where his commitment to helping people without homes began.

Jahkil's first idea was as large as a child's heart could make it: he wanted every person without a home to have a house. That was not something a young boy could deliver. His parents did not dismiss the wish. Instead, they helped him find a version of it he could actually carry out.

The answer was the Blessing Bag, a simple package of everyday essentials. Over time the bags have held items such as socks, hand warmers, wipes, deodorant, hand sanitizer, toothbrushes, toothpaste, granola bars, and bottled water. During the COVID-19 pandemic, face masks and gloves were added.

In February 2016, Jahkil invited friends and family to a packing party to assemble the first bags. His parents and grandmother helped him organize it. His official site says the effort began with 88 Blessing Bags.

That gathering became the pattern for what followed. In June 2016 he launched the effort as Project I Am, and packing parties remained at its center, giving other children and families a hands-on way to serve alongside him.

Project I Am did not grow through one boy's effort alone. Family members organized and supported the work from the start. Local partners mattered too: a 2018 report from Northwestern University's Medill School described Project I Am working with Ladies of Virtue, a Chicago nonprofit, and distributing bags at the Lincoln Park Community Shelter. Companies later sponsored events, and children from many cities joined virtual packing parties.

Recognition followed the work rather than leading it. Jahkil received the 2017 Gloria Barron Prize for Young Heroes and was named a CNN Heroes Young Wonder in 2019. Former President Barack Obama publicly highlighted him in 2017. Points of Light honored him with a Daily Point of Light Award.

His message to other young people has stayed consistent. He told Medill reporters that kids "don't have to wait until you are an adult" to make a difference, and his personal motto is "Don't wait to be great."

The numbers grew steadily. By the end of 2017, Project I Am had distributed about 5,000 Blessing Bags. By mid 2020, Points of Light reported nearly 40,000 bags distributed in U.S. cities including Chicago, Atlanta, and Los Angeles, and in places such as Eswatini, Guatemala, Puerto Rico, and the Bahamas.

Today his official site reports that his work has impacted more than 250,000 people, engaged more than 3,000 young volunteers, and raised nearly $1 million. Those figures come from his own organization. He has also written three books for young readers about kindness, service, and resilience, and as a young adult he speaks to audiences about service and entrepreneurship while playing college basketball.

A childhood wish to give everyone a house was not something any one family could fulfill. What Jahkil and the people around him did instead was find the next useful step, and then keep taking it.