BILLINGS – A non-profit group referred to as ‘A Future Superhero and Friends’ made their cease at a Billings animal shelter Thursday evening as a part of their Hope for the Holidays 50 states tour. The tour goals to assist the homeless neighborhood, veterans, youngsters, the elderly and animals earlier than the vacations.
Yuri Williams and Rodney Smith Jr., the founders of the tour, have been often known as two real-life superheroes for all the charitable work they do. Montana marked the seventeenth cease on their tour, the place they donated about 20 luggage of canine and cat meals to the Yellowstone Valley Animal Shelter and coated adoption charges for 5 animals.
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Williams began his organization, ‘A Future Superhero and Friends’, to assist battle despair following his mom’s passing in 2009 from a five-year battle with most cancers and says one of these work has helped him tremendously along with his psychological well being.
“It’s a super-power energy that I feel,” Williams said. “It gets me to go on to the next day because I don’t want to go back to that dark tunnel where I was for that five years because I almost felt like I lost myself.”
Smith Jr. is also no stranger to charitable work. He created his non-profit, ‘Raising Men and Women Lawn Care’, in 2015 after he noticed an elderly man struggling to mow his lawn and assisted him. He began moving lawns for free, eventually traveling across the U.S. to help take care of lawns for the elderly, disabled, single parents and veterans, also doing numerous tours to all 50 states. Now, thousands across the country have taken up the cause with him in his 50 Yards Challenge where kids are challenged to mow 50 yards for those in need.
“It’s helping people, and especially the kids. Yuri does a lot of work with the kids and my organization also helps mentor the kids and they take part in our 50 Yards Challenge. But it’s important to take care of those that need the help,” says Smith Jr.
Williams saw Smith Jr’s success and knew he’d found the perfect partner to collaborate with. While both have different organizations, the end goal and missions are the same.
“I was just texting him like crazy and I know he was probably thinking I was a madman, but it was just something that I saw him doing on that was very impressive that I was doing as well. I was like, maybe we should team up, and do the 50 states tour together,” remembers Williams.
This is now the fifth yr of the Future Superhero and Friends tour, and for Smith Jr, it is his seventeenth statewide tour. Each yr, Williams attire as a superhero whereas Smith Jr goes as certainly one of Santa’s elves. For this tour, Williams took on the persona of Miles Morales (Spider-man).
“The parents seem more excited than the kids sometimes because it brings you back to your childhood. Just seeing these kids smile and their parents smile for that 15, 10 minutes that I’m there, that’s what it’s about,” says Williams.
Both males have made numerous recollections throughout their journeys, even getting the prospect to revisit among the identical households annually. Smith Jr. shared a narrative about one youngster named David they met throughout their first tour that also sticks in his thoughts to at the present time.
“There was one young man by the title of David we met on our first tour collectively and he had one thing referred to as DIPG, which is a terminal mind tumor,” Smith Jr. mentioned. “And sadly, he handed away, I believe, two years in the past or so. Every 50 states tour that Yuri and I did collectively, we obtained an opportunity to go see David and I even did a 50 states tour for childhood most cancers to lift consciousness, and I obtained to see David one final time with that tour. I believe a month later, he handed away. What our organizations do, they go hand-in-hand.”
Both people dedicate numerous hours and work to those tasks, however say that the end result is greater than rewarding.
“Every day I get to wake up and do what I love. It’s not working, it’s not hard, I just get to do what I love, and I can’t go wrong with that,” says Smith Jr.
And that love can be felt by some furry associates in want in Billings. The adoption charges coated two cats, a puppy, a bunny and a lizard. As of Saturday, the puppy and lizard have discovered their perpetually houses, however go to the shelter’s web site, yvas.org, for extra details about these animals.
If you wish to study extra concerning the Hope for the Holiday’s trigger and donate, go to Williams’ web site at afuturesuperhero.com and Smith Jr’s web site at weareraisingmen.com.
