Entrepreneur Joaquin Horton shares enthusiasm for pipe cleaner crafts through Fuzzy Stix at Mattel Children’s Hospital
Noel Mark, 3, plays with Fuzzy Stix while visiting her brother in the neo-natal intensive care unit.
By Jake Greenberg
Jan. 28, 2011 12:39 a.m.
Six-year-old Kamila Reyes plays with Fuzzy Stix donated by Joaquin Horton at Mattel Children’s Hospital at UCLA.
A Fuzzy Stix owl is displayed in the Mattel Children’s Hospital at UCLA.
Creator of Fuzzy Stix Joaquin Horton, 19, visits 10-year-old Lacresha Collins in her hospital room.
The best ideas need not always require a bachelor’s degree in business to achieve national levels of commercial success.
Sometimes it’s as simple as a pipe cleaner.
On Wednesday, 19-year-old Joaquin Horton visited the Mattel Children’s Hospital at UCLA to hand out samples of his new product, Fuzzy Stix, and to show children how to make shapes and figures using the brightly colored pipe cleaners.
He donated a box of 1,000 pipe cleaners each to 100 patients at the hospital.
“It was great to see the children making flowers, butterflies and other animals,” said Clarice Bruno, child life assistant at the hospital. “The kids really liked spending time with Joaquin.”
Bruno said people like Horton who come in to spend time with the children offer a distraction from the monotony of hospital life.
“It’s a break from the scary environment that’s in a hospital,” she said. “And it gives the children a chance to get involved with something artistic and fun.”
Horton, a student at West Los Angeles College, started his company a year ago as a school project. Fuzzy Stix are now being sold across the country, including at large commercial chains such as OfficeMax.
Horton said he was inspired to market Fuzzy Stix by his own memories of playing with pipe cleaners when he was a child.
“I’ve been playing with pipe cleaners since I was seven,” he said. “They’re fun, and I thought I could make a business by showing people how to make things with them.” While visiting the hospital, Horton demonstrated the creative mind and deft hands he developed as a child by weaving the pipe cleaners into complex creations, including a baseball, some acorns and even an owl.
The move from hobby to business came when Horton’s high school teacher challenged his students to come up with a business plan and marketing scheme for a potential product.
Horton’s former high school, Crenshaw High, is part of the Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship, an organization that targets low-income areas and fosters enthusiasm for business and entrepreneurial development, said Estelle Reyes, executive director for the Los Angeles chapter of Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship.
“We’re extremely proud of Joaquin and all of the other students in the program,” she said. “I’m happy we can get students, especially from low-income families, involved with business.”
Since 2007, the Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship has received more than 4,000 students’ plans for businesses, Reyes said.
Horton said he is surprised by his idea’s success and has big dreams for the future.
“I’m focusing just on pipe cleaners right now, but I have ideas for fuzzy phone cases, fuzzy headphones and fuzzy baby mobiles,” he said.
He added that he is grateful for the chance to expand on his idea, and said he went to the children’s hospital to inspire the children to pursue their business ambitions, however simple.
“I want to show the kids that they can dream big and do whatever they want if they work hard enough,” he said.
