In 2020, just a few weeks before Easter, 8-year-old Josh Sowden went with his stepmother, Crystal, to visit her sister at a Worcester, Massachusetts homeless shelter. Crystal’s sister had her young son with her, and seeing his cousin, and the children there stirred something in Josh’s heart.

“I have so much,” he said. “And the children here have so little.”

“Hey, are they going to have Easter here?” Josh asked Crystal.

“Buddy, I really don’t know,” she replied.

Josh didn’t hesitate. “Ask the lady!”

Crystal approached a shelter staff member and asked whether the residents celebrated Easter. The answer was sobering: Unless someone donated supplies, there wouldn’t be any Easter celebration at all.

“OK,” Josh said with quiet determination. “We’re going to buy Easter baskets for them all.”

That moment was the start of Josh’s Easter Baskets for the Homeless, a heartfelt project that has become an annual tradition. That first year, Josh assembled more than 30 cellophane-wrapped Easter packages filled with goodies like stuffed toy eggs, crayons, markers, coloring books and plush bunnies. Because of pandemic restrictions, he left them in the lobbies of three local shelters.

“Let’s do it again!” Josh said afterward. “I want to do 150 baskets next year.”

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Since then, Josh’s Easter Baskets for the Homeless has grown each year, even earning national recognition when a TV news story aired in 2023.

That same year, Josh’s own family faced temporary homelessness when their landlord had to move back into the home they were renting. While living in a hotel, Josh felt even more driven to keep the Easter project going.

Donations poured in from across the country—through Venmo, an Amazon wish list and gift cards. Josh, along with family members and community helpers, carefully packed more than 500 Easter baskets tailored to different age groups, from infants to teens.

The baskets brought wide smiles and joy.

“They all are very excited when he brings them,” says Emilia Ibanez, a child advocate for the Central Massachusetts Housing Alliance, which operates many shelters. “Many of the residents are immigrants and have never celebrated Easter before.”

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As for Crystal, she couldn’t be prouder of Josh’s compassion and commitment.

“It’s so inspiring to have kids who aren’t just thinking about themselves,” she says. “For him to keep wanting to do it, even during our hardest times, really fills me with pride. I know he’ll grow up to be a great human.”

Recently, Crystal and Josh’s father, Nick, moved temporarily to Fort Myers, Florida, to care for a sick relative. Josh now lives with his mother in Massachusetts and visits Florida when he can. The family’s goal is to bring Josh’s Easter Baskets for the Homeless to both locations next year.

“I want to keep doing this until I physically can’t anymore,” says Josh, now 13. “I kind of know what it feels like not having a place you can call home. That’s how some of these other kids feel, and we want them to feel joy. It feels really great knowing I can give somebody something.”