Birmingham 6th Grader Finalist For 2022 Kid Of The Year

BIRMINGHAM, AL — A Birmingham sixth grader has been nominated for a national honor. Ethan Hill, a students at Birmingham's Phillips Academy, was recently named one of 20 finalists for the Time magazine and Nickelodeon 2022 Kid of the Year award.

Hill, who has been delivering care packages to Birmingham's homeless community since he was just seven years old, started his own nonprofit, Ethan's Heart, to continue his mission. He is the only student from Alabama in the top 20.

Ethan was honored last year with the Birmingham's Academic Leader Award at the 2021 Minority Business Awards, becoming the youngest recipient in the award's history.

Ethan got the idea to help the homeless during his morning rides to school. Every day, he noticed a man living under a bridge. He asked his parents if there was anything they could to help the man. Once the family discussed the man and his situation, Ethan got to work, at the age of 7, doing online research on what the homeless community needed.

Ethan asked his parents if they could buy orange Home Depot buckets and supplies for the homeless. And in 2018 when he was 8 years old, Ethan bought 50 sleeping bags for the homeless in Birmingham. He has continued his efforts for more than three years, and has delivered hundreds of sleeping bags and care packages to the homeless community in that time.