Working hard for his cause

Like any ambitious executive, Nicholas Marriam has the art of networking down cold.

He scatters his business cards the way a New Year's Eve reveler scatters confetti. He walks up to strangers, turns on his high-wattage smile, sticks out his hand and introduces himself. He talks up his business at every opportunity. He treats any encounter as the start of his next big deal.

Marriam's organization, Nickelby Project Inc., is a shoestring, kitchen-table operation, but it's active in two states and has attracted nationally known investors. It has the smell of success around it.

Wait a minute. I've left out a pertinent fact: Marriam is 13 years old. He hasn't even started eighth grade yet.

Marriam -- who calls himself "Nick," so I will, too -- may be the youngest person I've ever known to have real, actual, serious business cards. Not to mention being the youngest creator of a real, actual, serious nonprofit organization. But that's what a bout of real, actual, serious cancer will do for you.

It clears the mind, and helps you focus on whatever task you take on for yourself.

Nick survived T-cell lymphoma, which was diagnosed when he was 6 years old and was only discovered because a tumor in his chest had grown so large that his heart had been pushed out of place and a lung collapsed. He spent a couple of years living a life that no child should have to endure: chemotherapy, spinal taps, isolation, etc.

In that time, two things made a particular impression on him. The first was his mother's reaction when a friend showed up at the hospital with a bag of overnight essentials. Angel Marriam, as a matter of superstitious belief, never took anything with her when she and Nick visited doctors for treatment -- because to pack things for an overnight stay was to admit that they were losing ground to the cancer.

But when the goodies bag arrived unbidden and Angel cried tears of thankfulness, Nick thought to himself: Boy, a simple bag of stuff can sure make somebody happy.

The other thing was the friendship of his cousin Shelby. They're just eight months apart, and she has been Nick's pal forever. When he was vulnerable to infection and had to be isolated, she would gather kids from the neighborhood and they'd sit on the deck outside the sliding-glass door at Nick's home. She'd have one walkie-talkie, Nick would have the other, and they'd all play games together -- with Nick safely inside his glass shield, but still part of the gang.

Nick eventually connected the dots between those two memories. He decided to collect stuff to put into gift bags for sick, lonely kids. "I know what it's like to be in the hospital," he says.

He recruited Shelby to help -- hence the name "Nickelby" -- and over the past five years they've given away 3,000 goodie bags in North Carolina and the Washington, D.C., area, near Shelby's home. Some of the gifts were donated, while others were bought with money the pair earned or raised. Earlier this year, Nickelby Project (www.nickelbyproject.org) was formally incorporated and received tax-exempt status. Or as Nick says it, the project was "recognized by The Man."

Nick is probably the hardest-working 13-year-old in the philanthropy business.

He's constantly looking for donations, but the job is harder these days because Nick is healthy. Previously, "people would give because I looked sickly," he says.

So are you gonna hold his ruddy good looks against him?