Cassidy Mack has plenty going for her. The girl has a budding acting career, a nonprofit she's getting off the ground and a family support crew.
Life wasn't always so good for the 13-year-old from Laguna Niguel. Mack started life being jostled around the foster care system in Texas. She hasn't forgotten the hardship and confidence issues the experience brought.
"She's a completely different girl than when we got her," said Jenn McKown, who adopted Mack at age 6. "She beat the odds."
Recently, Mack had an audition for a new Nickelodeon show. This weekend, she's speaking at a Texas conference on foster care, where the Disney Channel will be on hand to film her for its Make Your Mark social outreach campaign.
She's already landed roles in several television shows, and lead roles in the movies "Chilly Christmas" and "Zombeo and Juliecula," among others. Her most recent, "Zoey to the Max," is about a foster girl with strikingly similar experiences to her own.
It took a random string of events for Mack to get into acting, starting with a chance meeting with actor Ryan Gosling at Catalina Island while she was vacationing with her family.
That was the spark, both Mack and her mother agree. Several weeks later, McKown enrolled her in a one-week acting camp. She said she simply hoped to satisfy her daughter's curiosity.
It turned out Mack had talent.
"Needless to say, she got signed immediately," McKown said. That was about four years ago.
At an audition last year, a casting director in Los Angeles asked Mack and several other young actors to write a word or two about themselves, as a prompt. Mack wrote, "I am a survivor."
The casting director loved it, she said – her identity as a foster child helped an acting career in its infancy take flight. It gave Mack the confidence she needed, after being unsure of herself for several years. "I finally felt more open about it," Mack said.
"People don't understand what it is to be a foster child," McKown adds. "They're just misunderstood ... All of a sudden, she got all this positive feedback from being adopted."
As Mack's profile grew in recent months – including an autobiography she wrote for Fostering Families Magazine – McKown suggested to her daughter that perhaps it would be an ideal time to start a foundation. Maybe she could find a way to benefit foster children with her newfound stature, McKown said. She threw the idea out, but it was Mack who latched on and ran with it.
"I always had this idea I would start a foundation," Mack said.
She came up with a name, Love Gives Chances, thought up with an idea for pendants she could sell to supporters and give to foster children she knew who needed a lift – a daily reminder they could make it through the hardships of the system.
Mack said she drew a design on a napkin. A friend's dad is a jewelry designer, and helped make the design a reality. "I am a survivor," is written on them.
For every "supporter" pendant sold, Mack had an idea to give a "survivor" pendant to a foster kid in need. If she can sell enough and collect other donations on her website,lovegiveschances.org, Mack said she would also like to give scholarships for foster kids to attend classes or camps.
They might be able to attend a dance camp, a horse camp – or an acting camp.
Her goal, she said, is "to get the word out there and allow them to be who they want to be, even though they're trapped in the system."
Her mother beams with pride for her adopted daughter. She now commutes six days a week to Los Angeles to get Mack to her auditions and meetings.
"This is a 35-year-old woman stuck in a 13-year-old's body," McKown joked. "As her mom, that is just exhausting me."
It's clearly been worth it.
"I want people to know that when you give this kind of kid a chance, they find themselves," McKown said.
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