When Legacy Jackson became the youngest speaker in Missouri to deliver a Tedx Talk, she used the historic moment to educate adults on how to heal the world.
Last October, the 14-year-old released her fear of possibly forgetting her speech and presented in front of thousands of people at the Touhill Performing Arts Center in St. Louis. She was only a few months into high school then, but Jackson made clear that she had plenty of experience when it comes to helping others. She was just seven years old when she founded Little Legacies, a nonprofit helping kids become change makers through community service. Since 2016, Jackson and other kids between the ages of 2-18 have banded together to improve their world by completing monthly projects such as sending more than 3,600 shoes to Africa and Christmas caroling at a senior citizen’s home. Jackson said she wanted to educate the Tedx audience about how servitude while having fun can create a big impact: over 200 kids served more than 5,000 people thanks to the power of teamwork and Jackson’s vision.
“Kids can make a bigger impact than some adults in the world,” Jackson said. “Half of the people who were attending the TED Talk were doing talks about their organizations, but they weren’t doing TED Talks about what their organizations were doing for the community. So I feel like my TED Talk really left the audience with the impact of going out there and making a difference in the world.”
Legacy was just two years old when she first got a glimpse of people who were unhoused. It was a cold Christmas morning in downtown St. Louis. Jackson’s mother Kynedra Ogunnaike and her teen brother, Brendon Ogunnaike, were handing out hats, gloves and warm chicken noodle soup to those in need. Finding ways to help others was part of the family’s monthly routine. It wasn’t until Jackson was four that she began noticing that she was usually the only child during their community service events. She started talking to her mom about starting a group so that Jackson could have other kids to play with while volunteering. But her mother told her that service time wasn’t a place for kids to play.
But Jackson wouldn’t accept no for an answer. Her heart ached as she began to notice kids her age in homeless shelters. She wanted to ensure that they had the same childhood as hers: one filled with pizza parties, birthdays and other childlike activities. It was then her mom caved, and Little Legacies was born.
The first community service project was at the same hospital where her brother Brendon was healing from Type I Diabetes complications. Jackson gathered the kids together, along with some construction paper, markers, glue and crayons, to make homemade “Get Well” cards for 100 kids at Children’s Hospital. It was Jackson’s “ah-ha” moment as she realized that kids could have fun while helping others.
The whole family quickly rallied around Jackson’s dreams. And her brother became her biggest cheerleader. Kyndra Ogunnailke describes Brendon as an eclectic soul whose musical talent stretched across 12 instruments. He was the one who made Jackson’s first Instagram page and took care of her as if she was his own child.
“I’m like, ‘You know, you’re not her parent. You’re her sibling.’ And he’s like, ‘No, she belongs to all of us,’” Kynedra Ogunnaike said.
Of course there were times when Brendon and Jackson fought, as siblings do. And when he didn’t want her in his room, just like siblings do. But the love was eternal. Jackson’s name was tattooed on his skin, and he wanted to be the one to get Jackson’s first autograph if she became famous.
“He knew I was gonna be somebody,” Jackson said.
And now he is always there, watching over her as she becomes somebody great.
For Brendon
When Brendon passed away from Type I diabetes in January 2017, both Jackson and her mother thought he was asleep.
Both Kynedra Ogunnaike and Jackson’s lives paused. His humor was gone and they both had to navigate PTSD from the moment as mother and daughter. Kynedra Ogunnaike put her daughter in play therapy to find healing and she put in the work to move through a new life herself. People tried to ease her pain by discussing their own losses, like the death of a parent.
But Kynedra Ogunnaike said that loss doesn’t quite fit the moment of burying your own child or losing a sibling.
“It defies the natural order. It’s not supposed to happen that way,” Kynedra Ogunnaike said. “It doesn’t get better. It gets different, but you have to be willing to do the work.”
Jackson’s work came through helping others. She did two things in honor of her brother. Jackson and her mom blow bubbles in memory of Brendon during their trips around the world. They did it during a trip to Paris near the Eiffel Tower, Belize, Canada and every state except Alaska, Idaho and Wyoming. Jackson became inspired to write a book called “Bubbles for Brendon,” which teaches kids how to navigate grief after losing a loved one.
But one of the most important things was keeping Little Legacies going. While it can be a lot of chaotic mornings and late nights, Jackson said her nonprofit is dedicated to changing stigma around how people view teens from the Gen-Z generation.
“On the news, all you see is the negative that they’re doing – the killings, the school shootings and all of this – but there are kids that are being very good changemakers in the world, and that are doing very well when making the difference in the world, but they don’t get as much spotlight because the news likes more negative aspects of things instead of the good things,” Jackson said.
And so Jackson kept moving forward to help others – just as her brother would have wanted.
Little Legacies lasting impact
One of Jackson’s favorite projects with Little Legacies involved treating girls from a local homeless shelter to a free professional dance class during last April’s International Day of Dance. The girls smiled big as they twirled around in front of large mirrors and learned techniques from professional dancers. After receiving free ballet shoes and leotards, the girls slipped on their costumes to put on a performance of Black girl magic in front of an audience. A competitive dancer herself, Jackson felt gratitude as she witnessed the girls find freedom on stage.
“It was just a mood in the room – a vibe that everybody was just happy. They were able to have fun with each other and express themselves through the art of dance,” Jackson said.
Making space for people to express themselves became an important goal for Jackson in 2020 during one of the most heaviest moments in the nation. As people poured into the streets to protest the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police, Jackson didn’t want herself and others to be silent.
“I feel like something just didn’t sit right,” Jackson said. “I couldn’t just sit here and watch everybody else protest, and people getting killed on the streets because they’re protesting for their rights, which they have the complete right to do. So I had to make a way where I could say something – where I could stand up.”
Jackson’s way of standing up – at just 10 years old – was for her and her mother to organize a drive-thru protest for the senior citizens who couldn’t attend the larger events. About 50 cars strolled through the community before stopping in front of the senior citizen homes for a rally where participants voiced their desire to be able to breathe while Black. Ogunnaike said that a multigenerational group of citizens took a stand that day.
“Anytime you hear someone saying, ‘I can’t breathe’, naturally you would hope people would take heed to that,” Ogunnaike said. “We wanted to show that we were outraged about it, and that we want to be respected as humans regardless of income and skin tone.”
Legacy’s Dream of a better world
Jackson’s kindness, optimism and natural leadership abilities is what made her the perfect candidate for Disney Dreamers Academy. The annual program selects 100 high schoolers from thousands of applicants across the nation to be a part of a once-in-a-lifetime experience at Walt Disney World in Orlando. Last week, Jackson and other teens – called Dreamers – were inspired to be our next generation of leaders, authors, filmmakers, animators and more. And the extra perk: the Dreamers explored all four parks on Disney’s dime and got to dance with Disney characters during a parade through Magic Kingdom.
Jackson has visited Disney World before but it didn’t stop her from squealing with delight while taking photos with her favorite character. She’s a Stitch fan because they have the same personality.
“I love Stitch because he is different,” Jackson said. “He doesn’t really care what people think about him. So I feel like me and him relate a lot.”
Along with enjoying the parks, Dreamers also receive mentorship during interactive career workshops led by celebrities and experts in STEM, filmmaking and other fields. Jackson has aspirations to be a journalist who breaks down stereotypes placed on youth through storytelling. She was part of the entertainment workshop, which was led by Lyn Sission-Talbert who helped produce the award-winning film “Jingle Jangle,” a Christmas tale that explores how wonder and authenticity can heal generational wounds. After guiding the Dreamers through acting and performance exercises, Sission-Talbert allowed Jackson to interview her as if she wereas on the red carpet. This gave Jackson a chance to create a story for herself.
“I learned how to research a person because we didn’t know much about her,” Jackson said. “So we had to go on her Instagram and Facebook. It also showed us how social media does display who you are because we learned a lot from social media about who she was as a person.”
After all the fanfare, the music and Mickey Mouse-shaped confetti, one of the greatest gifts the Dreamers receive is each other: to be surrounded by like-minded individuals who all speak from a place of fearlessness, hope and charisma when they talk about their ideas and goals to create a better world. Thanks to the program, Jackson has a new goal to add to her list: to become a DREAMbassador responsible for encouraging and speaking life over the teens throughout the program. If selected for the role in the future, Jackson said she would inspire the Dreamers with a message of unity – one that’s similar to the aspirations that started Little Legacies.
“You don’t have to compete with each other to be better than one another,” Jackson said. “We are all good and have strengths and weaknesses in different ways and in different areas. If we build our strengths up together, then we would be unstoppable and our world would be better. But if we try to get at each other with our weaknesses and we go to a negative side, then that’s just going to be where we are in the world today.”
During the second day at Dreamers Academy, the teens were challenged to think about the plights of the world as they created and drew their own superheroes. The activity was led by former Disney Imagineer Nikkolas Smith, an illustrator who believes in the marriage of art and activism. Chills went through the room during the Dreamer’s presentation of their colorful masterpieces made with vision and hope. The teens spoke about the importance of solving food insecurity, homelessness and climate change. Jackson titled her superhero “the Change Maker.”
“It’s a person who sees a problem and doesn’t back down from it no matter how hard it gets. They say, ‘I have a reason in this world and I’m going to make a difference.’”
And Jackson is determined to continue to make a difference for the rest of her days.