Remember when you were young, and you set up a lemonade stand and were thrilled if you made a couple of dollars? 9 year old Caine Monroy, of East LA, built an elaborate cardboard arcade out of empty boxes from his dad’s used auto parts store. Read more of Caine’s story and watch his video.
From a Caine’s website:
Caine dreamed of the day he would have lots of customers visit his arcade, and he spent months preparing everything, perfecting the game design, making displays for the prizes, designing elaborate security systems, and hand labeling paper-lunch-gift-bags. However, his dad’s autoparts store (located in an industrial part of East LA) gets almost zero foot traffic, so Caine’s chances of getting a customer were very small, and the few walk in customers that came through were always in too much of a hurry to get their auto part to play Caine’s Arcade. But Caine never gave up.
One day, by chance, I walked into Smart Parts Auto looking for a used door handle for my ’96 Corolla. What I found was an elaborate handmade cardboard arcade manned by a young boy who asked if I would like to play. I asked Caine how it worked and he told me that for $1 I could get two turns, or for $2 I could get a Fun Pass with 500 turns. I got the Fun Pass.
This short film tells the story of Caine’s Arcade, and of our attempt to make Caine’s day.
Caine’s story has caught the attention of world-wide media. An arcade company in Los Angeles, Pins and Needles, donated $3,000 worth of arcade machines.
A scholarship has been set up for Caine. So far, fans of the video have donated more than $140,000!
After the flashmob, at the end of the day as Caine and his dad drove home, Caine turned to his dad and said, Dad, this was the best day of my whole life.
Watch Caine’s story here:
Caine’s Arcade from Nirvan Mullick on Vimeo.
Source
Nirvan Mullick