I kind of started the An Awesome World Foundation just like everything it was just sort of organic, you know. Like I wrote the book and I put the book out myself and then a bunch of people started buying the book. And then my son when he was in school, he would get these like little like pieces of paper that would come home with him and they’d be like, “This author is going to come read today at your school. Please send $17.95 if you want the copy of the book or $19.95 if you want an autographed copy of the book.” Right? And I would look at it and be like, “That’s so crazy!” ‘Cause if I was in their class, I for sure would not have had that money. I would have forgotten it. I would have lost it. My parents wouldn’t have had it. Whatever. A million reasons why I never would have gotten that book. So I’d have been the kid without the book. Bummed, right.
So I was like, “I made these books myself. I can just give them away.” Like no one’s going to stop me, you know. So I went on tour and read these books to all these people. Well, basically like I sent out an email to everybody that bought the book and then I go in to lunch and then I came back and it was like, “Come to this place. Come to this place. Come to this place.” Got in a van, drove across the country, like read to all these places. And every place I went was like more amazing than the next, you know. Like you’re like, “This is,” you know, with your friends, “This is the coolest thing that’s ever happened.”
And you’re like giving these books to these kids and they’re all smiling and laughing and like, you know, some kid is like, “You’re Dallas Clayton.” And you’re like, “I know. It’s
How do you know that? Who told you?” And you’re so excited. And so then I was like, “How do I do this all the time?” You know, so I came back to L.A. and I was like, “I’m going to start a foundation that, you know, gives away books.” Sell books, give away books.
So that’s what I did and I started the foundation and now it’s like, it’s kind of grown ‘cause every time I go on tour, it’s, you know, “Wait. We can just paint a mural on this school.” Or like, “Hey, what if we add music?” Or like, “Hey, what if, you know, we went to this hospital instead of going here?”
Or like, “What if we read in a tree?” Or like, “This guy wants me to read at this rock concert.” Or like, “What if I read at a skate park?” Or, “What happens if I go read to a college instead of a preschool?” But like I said, like what I’m doing, it’s not about, you know, giving 10 million books to kids that I never see that live somewhere that I’ve never been. It’s about like having interactions with people and making it a very simple small like powerful thing.
