The Cocoons campaign is about giving back and paying forward. Put simply, I help others now, as others have helped me in the past.

At the turn of the century, I moved to New York and found myself without an apartment. On the evening of September 10th, 2001, having nowhere in particular to be, I came to be resting on a bench beneath Tower 2 of The World Trade Center; gazing up the side of the building and off into space, never knowing that it would be the last time that I would visit the Twin Towers. 2001 was a year of many firsts for me; as it turns out, my first time living in New York was also my first time living without an apartment or home. Over the following nine months, I found myself in places I would not have considered being in, associating with people I would likely, never had known and having done things that would probably be best left forgotten (but are not).

During this time I began compiling a list of things that I thought essential to maintaining some semblance of normalcy while adapting to my new set of circumstances. I had planned to put these items together into a kit and distribute them amongst my new circle of acquaintances. However, the realization that each of these kits would cost roughly a hundred dollars to produce made doing so, a somewhat unlikely prospect at that time.

I would not revisit the idea again until after my return to Boston and the eviction of my mother from her home of over 40 years.