Community Corner

Local Nonprofit Helps Kids Help Children Experience a World of 'Pure Imagination'

A local nonprofit started by the owners of Midtown's The Melting Pot helps children learn how to help other children, usually facing a terminal illness or disorder, achieve a dream.

Imagine swimming with the whale sharks at the Georgia Aquarium. Then imagine doing it as a child.

That’s what local nonprofit, Pure Imagination, helped make happen for one young patient at Children's Healthcare of Atlanta, and that's Pure Imagination is all about. The organization, started by the owners of Midtown's The Melting Pot Layla Gunn and her husband Mark, helps Atlanta-area children dealing with terminal illnesses or disorders enjoy a day customized just for them. It’s usually a day to escape and just have fun, and the most unique part is that it all is able to happen because of the help of another child.

“I believe it’s important to teach children to be compassionate toward other children in less fortunate circumstances and pay it forward,” Layla Gunn said in a video on the Pure Imagination website.

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“Hope is achieved when we are able to forget our troubles, even if just for a moment, and enjoy that special moment. That is where the idea of Pure Imagination was born.”

Children are able to help raise funds and find ways to reward other children who may be dealing with challenging health issues, ultimately learning the valuable lesson of helping others at a very young age.

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According to its website, “Pure Imagination encourages generous children to form friendships by sharing experiences with children that have faced a life adversity, usually a chronic or terminal illness.  In doing so, both children learn how to embrace hope and create lasting memories.”

Recently, Layla Gunn and her husband Mark hosted

Gunn said she asked Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta, a Pure Imagination partner, to suggest a child who was not able to deliver Girl Scout cookies this year.

That’s how she learned of Ana West, a first-year Brownie recovering from a stroke she had in November, and why she ended up purchasing 300 boxes of Girl Scout cookies, which were given out during Sunday’s Fondue It Forward event.

Patrons were able to dine at the Melting Pot and create their own chocolate creation, inspired by Girl Scout cookies, which would be featured on the menus of all four Atlanta-area Melting Pot locations for a limited time. All the proceeds from the special fondue creation will go to benefit Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta.

See also:

  • 7-Year-Old Stroke Survivor Honored at Melting Pot Event
  • 7-Year-Old Stroke Survivor Gets Chance to Sell Girl Scout Cookies


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