If This Piece of Cardboard Doesn't Warm Your Heart, Then We're No Longer Friends Adam Mordecai - Upworthy
go to original September 22, 2012

This is the followup to the original Caine's Arcade short film. 5 months later, Caine's Arcade has gone global, inspiring a wave of cardboard creativity, an Imagination Foundation, and a Global Cardboard Challenge. Register & Find an Event to Play

So way back in the day we wrote about this amazing kid, Caine, who built an arcade out of cardboard. It was AWESOME.

That video inspired millions of people all over the world. And now they're doing something about it. Here's the sequel that made me totally choke up a little. Oh, like you won't when you watch it?

Caine Monroy is a 9-year old boy who spent his summer vacation building an elaborate DIY cardboard arcade in his dad’s used auto parts store.

Caine dreamed of the day he would have lots of customers visit his arcade, and he spent months preparing everything, perfecting the game design, making displays for the prizes, designing elaborate security systems, and hand labeling paper-lunch-gift-bags. However, his dad’s autoparts store (located in an industrial part of East LA) gets almost zero foot traffic, so Caine’s chances of getting a customer were very small, and the few walk in customers that came through were always in too much of a hurry to get their auto part to play Caine’s Arcade. But Caine never gave up.

One day, by chance, I walked into Smart Parts Auto looking for a used door handle for my ’96 Corolla. What I found was an elaborate handmade cardboard arcade manned by a young boy who asked if I would like to play. I asked Caine how it worked and he told me that for $1 I could get two turns, or for $2 I could get a Fun Pass with 500 turns. I got the Fun Pass.

Join the Global Cardboard Challenge

The Imagination Foundation is launching the first ever Global Cardboard Challenge, inviting the world to play while raising funds to foster creativity and entrepreneurship in kids.

September will be the month to organize and build, then on October 6th (the one-year anniversary of the flashmob that came out to make Caine’s day) friends, family, co-workers and community members can come out to play at local events, celebrating the creativity and imagination of kids around the world.

Check it out here

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