In April, the sweet story of 9-year-old Caine Monroy, who built his own arcade out of cardboard boxes, took the Internet by storm and induced tears nationwide.
The heartwarming documentary about the arcade, made by Caine's first customer, filmmaker Nirvan Mullick, went so viral that over $220,000 has since been raised as a part of a special scholarship fund to help Caine go to college, reported The Huffington Post.
In the latest update to the Caine's Arcade story, Mullick posed with former President Bill Clinton with a Caine's Arcade Funpass and posted it to his Facebook page.
Story continues after photo
Last week, Mullick attended the Social Innovation Summit in Moutain View, Calif., and shared the story of Caine’s Arcade and the Imagination Foundation -- a non-profit that stemmed from the Caine's Arcade short film, with the mission to foster and fund creativity and entrepreneurship in kids -- at the event.
After the presentations, a few of the summit attendees got together for a small dinner. Barbara Bush -- one of the attendees -- was at the dinner with Mullick and noticed that President Clinton happened to be at the same restaurant.
"On our way out, as we passed President Clinton’s table, the security agents said hello to Barbara, and President Clinton got up from his table to say hi. Barbara, who had seen my presentation, graciously introduced me to President Clinton, and I had a moment to shake his hand and snap this photo before he went back to his meal," Mullick wrote on his Facebook page.
Mullick was excited to show the photo to fans of Caine's Arcade. But one of Clinton's security personnel took him aside and insisted that the photo be for personal use only.
“So, that is for personal use only, right?” he told Mullick. “We wouldn’t want to see this photo posted online, implying any kind of endorsement. We would hate to get our lawyers involved.”
“Oh, ok,” Mullick assured the bodyguard, “I won’t post this anywhere.”
The filmmaker was about to leave the restaurant when he decided to try his luck one more time.
"I went back up to the security agent, handed him my card, and told him how the funpass President Clinton was photographed with was from a short film I made about a 9-year old boy who built a cardboard arcade," Mullick wrote.
That was when the security guard interrupted him to ask incredulously, “You made Caine’s Arcade?”
Mullick replied that he was indeed Caine's first customer, to which the security guard added, “That movie made me cry.”
"I stood there without words," Mullick wrote.
The security guard then leaned in, put his hand on my shoulder and said, “You can go ahead and post the photo.”
He then took Mullick's card, shook his hand, and promised to try and show President Clinton the film.
CORRECTION: A previous version of this story stated that only $65,000 had been raised for Caine's scholarship. That number was outdated and the story has been changed to reflect the current amount.
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