The Small Magic Foundation

So last week I finally reorganized my junk drawer. You know the one. Rubber bands, a phone charger for a phone I no longer own, seventeen ketchup packets. I felt AMAZING about it. I texted my sister a photo like I had just summited a mountain. “Look what I did!” Truly a banner day for me.

Then, about an hour later, my brain wandered to the kind of team I am hoping walks through the door any day now, and my junk drawer victory suddenly felt a lot smaller.

Let me backup, and let me be clear, this next part hasn’t happened yet. We are still a young foundation and I don’t have real stories to tell you just yet. But I can picture this one so clearly it might as well have. So humor me. Imagine a sixteen year old named Mia who rides the bus through downtown Tampa everyday after school, headphones in, minding her own business the way teenagers do. But she keeps noticing the same thing on that route. Elderly neighbors sitting alone outside the corner store, day after day, watching the world go by with nobody stopping to say hello. Most of us notice things like that, feel a little pang about it, and then keep scrolling because we have somewhere to be. Not Mia. In my little imaginary scenario, she starts asking questions, first to the store owner, then to a few of the neighbors themselves, and she figures out pretty quickly that nobody is being unkind on purpose. There just isn’t an easy way for this neighborhood to look out for itself.

So Mia, still entirely a figment of my hopeful imagination, does what any self respecting sixteen year old would do. She recruits four friends and the whole crew applies together for a Small Magic Foundation microgrant. Their idea is a weekly front porch visit program, teens pairing up with elderly neighbors for an hour of company and light errands. Nothing fancy. No app, no pitch deck, no matching t shirts. Just $500, a sign up sheet, and a team willing to trade a Saturday morning of sleeping until noon for something that actually matters. Picture them getting the microgrant. A few weeks in, imagine the corner store owner texting Mia a photo of a grandmother cracking up with a pack of teenagers on the sidewalk, clearly winning a joke competition against kids forty years younger than her.

You’re probably thinking, “great story, Lisa, teens are wonderful, we get it.” But here’s the part that got me.

Even imaginary Mia didn’t wait for anyone’s permission. She didn’t wait until she was older, or until it was a school assignment, or until someone handed her a manual on How To Care About Your Neighbors. She just noticed a problem and started asking around, which, if I’m honest with myself, is a habit I lost somewhere around age thirty in favor of things like reorganizing junk drawers and calling it a win.

That’s the whole reason I started Small Magic Foundation. I believe there are hundreds of Mias across Tampa Bay right now. Teenagers who notice something broken and want to fix it, but don’t have a clear path to actually do it. No funding, no adult saying yes, no structure to turn a good idea into a Saturday that matters. A microgrant knocks that barrier down. It says, I believe you, here’s a little money, go make it happen.

What gets me every time is that the impact never stops with the original idea. A front porch visit program doesn’t just give lonely neighbors some company. It changes how a group of teenagers sees their own neighborhood, and how that neighborhood sees them right back. They stop being kids killing time. They become the ones who showed up, every Saturday, rain or shine.

So here’s my small lesson for the week, tied up with a ribbon the way I like to do it. A junk drawer is fine. Organize it if it makes you happy, I certainly won’t stop you. But don’t let tidying up be the biggest thing you do this month when there is actual small magic happening two neighborhoods over, waiting for someone to believe in it enough to fund it.

If you know a teen like Mia, someone with an idea, I want to meet them. And if their idea sounds a little too small to matter, that’s usually exactly the kind of idea I’m looking for.

Come see what we’re building, and maybe help me fund the next Mia, at smallmagicfoundation.org. Who’s in?

Happy Fourth of July from all of us at the Small Magic Foundation!

Today we are celebrating the spark in our community. We love seeing how our local teens light up the world with their ideas and their drive to create change. We are so proud to be part of that journey with them.

Wishing you a day full of fireworks, great food, and time with the people who mean the most to you. Thanks for being in our corner.

Next week, we look forward to joining fellow community leaders at the South Tampa Chamber awards ceremony.

It is a distinct privilege for The Small Magic to attend as a finalist for Non-Profit of the Year. We are deeply grateful to everyone who supports our mission daily, and we are excited to spend the evening recognizing the impactful work being done across
our city.
Congratulations to all the organizations nominated for awards!