14-year-old Logan Laguë has been selling eclipse glasses all over the Eastern Townships. It started when his grandmother wanted to buy some to watch the total solar eclipse on April 8. However, she said that some of her friends had bought the wrong glasses.
When he found certified eclipse glasses for his family, Laguë decided to buy more and sell them around his community. After two weeks, he has already sold over 800 pairs.
“We have a lot of people saying, ‘Oh, if it wasn’t for you guys, we wouldn’t have been able to get some’,” says Laguë.
The proceeds go to his non-profit organization, the Logan Ryder Project, which he founded when he was 12 years old.
It was Raphaël André’s death that ignited his passion to help others. He was saddened that people experiencing homelessness were still subject to such extreme conditions, and he wanted to help.
The very next day he “went out with my toboggan, I called some family friends asking for some donations of clothes, because we were gonna go to Montreal, and at the end of the day, I couldn’t go up the hill of my house.”
Since then, he has been delivering clothes and meals to the homeless population in Montreal, and to youth shelters and families in need all over the region.
Even by selling glasses, he is fighting isolation. His mother Cynthia Royea explains that he has been mailing single pairs of glasses to people with disabilities or others who cannot leave their homes. “He’s like ‘Mom, that’s the ones that make me the happiest, because I know they’re alone to watch the eclipse’,” she says.
Laguë recently finished delivering 20 Easter hams to families in need. In the near future, he hopes to find a place to store all the donations he gathers around the year, which currently fill his living room. He also hopes to open a store where people in need can shop for second-hand items, for free.