ASHLAND – As 10-year-old Mikah Frye approached Ohio Governor John Kasich to receive the Governor’s Courage Award, Kasich leaned down to Frye’s level and whispered in the boy’s ear.
“You did a good thing, Mikah,” Kasich said.
Frye, a fourth grader at Taft Elementary School in Ashland, caught the governor’s attention after he gave up the Xbox he was promised for Christmas and used the money buy blankets for homeless people.
Frye was among three people in the state to receive on of Kasich’s Governor’s Courage Awards during the State of the State address March 6.
Frye’s generous idea came to him as he was sitting outside on a bench on a chilly day, his grandmother Terry Brant recalls.
“He said, ‘What do homeless people do if it’s cold out?'” Brant said.
Brant quickly responded by saying, “I don’t think there are homeless people in Ashland.”
She immediately regretted the statement.
“I knew what he would be thinking,” Brant said.
Just as she suspected, Frye was thinking of the time he and his parents found themselves homeless, staying in various churches around Ashland in the Ashland Community Churches Emergency Shelter Services (ACCESS) program.
It was before Brant had custody of her grandson.
Frye remembered he would sometimes have to share a blanket with family members, and he would always have to leave the blankets behind when he moved on to the next church in the shelter program. Frye was 6 years old at the time.
So Frye told his grandmother he wanted her to spend his Christmas money on blankets for the homeless rather than on the Xbox she had promised him.
Brant called ACCESS program director Cathy Thiemens, who told her the blankets would be an answer to a prayer.
Brant posted about Frye’s generosity on Facebook, and other people began giving her blankets to add to the donation.
Altogether, Frye was able to give the shelter about 60 blankets, each with a note from Frye attached.
“I live in my own house now, and some day you will too,” Frye wrote in the note.
The heartwarming story didn’t end there. A local media outlet wrote about the gift, and the story caught the attention of other media outlets and eventually of Microsoft, which gave Frye an Xbox.
Brant said Frye is getting tired of the media attention. All he wanted to do was to help other kids and families, not be hailed as a hero.
Still, Frye seemed to enjoy and appreciate the Courage Award recognition. He was excited to meet the governor and to have Ashland Mayor Matt Miller there to watch him receive the honor, Brant said.
“He really listened to everything the governor said, and I think he understood it a little bit,” Brant said.
Thiemens said each of the homeless women and children who enter the ACCESS program now receive a blanket and a note from Frye.
Frye’s kindness also may help children in ways he never imagined.
“This has reframed my thinking, so now whenever I have children in the program I think of what little things I can do to make them feel a little better, a little more at home,” she said.
