Cyrus Ausar started his journey in Massillon, Ohio where he created his first program at 13 years of age on accident at the Boys and Girls Club. This first program was simply having his friends read to 1st graders. At the time Cyrus didn’t even know what programming was, it was just a reflection of where his heart was.
The major question is: why did Cyrus start devoting his life to helping kids while he was a kid?
Well, it turns out everything changed for young Cyrus when he had to take on the role of providing for his younger brother. Cyrus once sold all of his clothes and shoes just to get his younger brother’s clothes and shoes for school. He didn’t want his younger brother to get joked on, therefore contributing to low self-esteem. This action sparked something in young Cyrus, he knew that if his family was going through issues, others must be going through the same thing. From then on out he made it his mission to alleviate the issues we all suffer with.
By the age of 18, Cyrus already had backpack giveaways, turkey drives, Christmas gift giveaways, winter coat drives, Easter egg hunts, and many other events. He realized that these events didn’t take much money to do, he could just tell many people about the idea, and it would come together. These events taught Cyrus how to write one sheeter to get his point across to businesses that could help his many causes.
After 18 years of age, Cyrus still had events but he shifted his focus on a broader approach. He started having concerts and tours with major artists, and he then used the money from ticket sales to have bigger events for people in need.
After all the work, Cyrus still had this empty feeling inside. So he decided to go on a journey to discover himself. He decided to move from Atlanta, Ga to Los Angeles, CA in his car. He didn’t know one person in L.A., he just knew he wanted to find himself. He got a job at LA Fitness to learn more about the city and parked in different areas of Los Angeles for a combined 8 months. Then everything clicked for him, he had his moment of really knowing what he wanted to do. He decided that he was going to devote his life to helping people understand themselves. He felt this would alleviate a lot of personal issues. So from there, he went back to raising money for youth, but he took a different approach.
He got involved with bigger non-profit organizations that would have him tell his stories to donors in order to raise significant amounts of money for causes benefitting youth. He has been told by several nonprofits that after he told his story and made donors realize the significance of their donations, they had raised the most money they’ve ever raised. The most tallying roughly $300,000 at one event.
Cyrus is still traveling the world speaking on various topics for youth, and now focuses on mental health awareness.
