Activist and Author Jared Green to Donate 1000 Children’s Books

16:24 October 12, 2018
By: Camille Barnett

Jared Green, a 24-year old activist, leader, and nonprofit organization founder, can now add author to his list of motivating titles. On September 21, he released his children's book There is a Creature in my Belly. Through his nonprofit organization, Sunny with a Chance of Love, he plans to donate 1,000 of his books across the city of New Orleans to underprivileged children.

As a community-active New Orleans native from the Lower Ninth Ward, Green has always aimed to be an inspiration and promote growth and change.

“I am a dreamer. I envision a city that creates innovative social and economic change and is the pioneer of such things for cities all around the country,” explained Green. “I believe the future is bright, and my hope for the future of people all around the city is even brighter.”

Green explained that for as long as he can remember, he has always encompassed a heart full of compassion. He recalled an instance that occurred when he was about eight years old:

“I saw a dying mouse in our house, and you know what I did? I picked it up, and I cried,” he recollected. After bringing the dying mouse to different members of his family, seeking help to save it, he didn’t understand their lack of sympathy; they were disgusted and simply beckoned him to throw it out. “I didn’t understand, like, it can’t do anything to us now. It’s dying,” he explained. “I didn’t understand why they didn’t want to help.” However, this instance later led him to understand his unique heart filled with empathy that constantly yearns to be of help to anything and anyone.

Green began volunteering in his community at five years old and said it’s something that always brought him genuine joy. “Man, volunteering all over the community, and not only my community; wherever you sent me, that’s where I would go,” he remembered. “I loved it; that’s the one thing that stuck—my service to people.”

He continued to be active by being constantly present in City Hall, involved in local politics, and founding Sunny with a Chance of Love, a nonprofit that reiterates his mission of bringing innovative social and economic change to New Orleans, using love and compassion as the foundation and fuel to do so.

Though Green now knows his clear purpose of being a leader in promoting social change, this wasn’t always the case. In fact, one could say that starting at age 15, he was almost obsessed with figuring out what his purpose in this world was.

As a child who chose Einstein and philosophy books over Judy Blume, and scientific complex toy models and experiment kits over action figures, his mother always referred to him as a genius, capable of anything; he initially didn’t see himself as such.

While growing up with many trials and tribulations, not only was he unclear on his reason for being, but also at one point, didn’t feel as if he had any purpose or belonged in this world at all. He heavily contemplated suicide.

“I knew who I was, but others refused to see me for more than the mistakes I had made,” said Green. “I just wanted to know what I did so wrong. People had turned their backs on me and refused to help me or even acknowledge that I existed.”

He said once he felt that he’d had enough, he initiated a conversation with God; he told him that he felt as if he was disappointing him and everyone and was ready to leave this Earth to be with him.

“God said back to me, ‘Everything you need, I already put inside you.’” This conversation prompted a revelation in him regarding his life’s purpose.

Growing up in church, Green said he would always feel like prophets were able to relate and speak to everyone but him. Around the same time when Green was in search of the meaning of his life, he recalls a prophet preaching that to have success, one must have pain and hardship. So, he asked God for just that.

His epiphany was that his life from age 15 thru 23 was so challenging because it was what he asked God for, and it was what he needed to fulfill his purpose: helping others. His experiences (dealing with emotions, being inappropriately touched as a child, dealing with deteriorating relationships with family members and the inability to provide for his son, being wrongfully charged and brought to jail multiple times, being robbed several times, and, overall, struggling with self-confidence) gave him the ability to resonate with people’s pain from varying walks of life. This gift of relatability, he said, helped him better be of assistance to those seeking help.

“All of it was a journey, which I thought for a while was my choosing, but I then realized it was predestined.”

This is what A Creature in my Belly aims to teach children; he wants them to realize that their purpose in life and their ability to contribute greatness to this world are things always within them.

He added that he has no plan to slow down his writing, as he feels his story is an important one to share with the world. In the future, he plans to release another book, Shielded, in both fiction and nonfiction, appealing to a variety of readers, while portraying the same message.

There’s a Creature in my Belly is now available to order online from Amazon, Barnes and Noble, or through his website, jardedthedreamer.com, where you can also keep up with Green’s writing as well as his continued work within the community.

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