+
upworthy
Heroes

TikTok star helped a struggling young girl he'd never met realize her dream of becoming a baker

Charlie Rocket, Charlie rocket dream machine, tiktok star helps girls bakery dream come true

Lyla's Dream Bakery.

Not all TikTok stars are in it for the internet fame. For some, like Charlie Rocket, it's about making people's dreams come true. Driving across the country in his Dream Machine RV, Rocket uses his platform to inspire people from all walks of life to "reach for the stars and not give up on themselves" by doing good deeds.


According to Fox News, Rocket had been helping a homeless man start a food truck in Colorado Springs when he heard about Lyla, a 10-year-old girl in St. Louis with chronic leg pain who had her own dream needing to be fulfilled. As Rocket put in his TikTok video, Lyla had no idea that her life was about to change for the next 24 hours.

Lyla suffers from complex regional pain syndrome (CRPS) in her leg. The pain is "worse than childbirth and getting something amputated," she told Rocket. But her passion for baking was a helpful distraction.

The dream team rolled up to Lyla's bake sale, which had been created to fundraise money for pain treatment. Rocket asks, "Do you think you would be able to bake for us?" and the little girl's face instantly lights up so bright it could melt glaciers.

@charlie This little girl with a rare disease has no idea her entire life is about to change in 24 hours…🥺❤️ #fypp #kindness #foru ♬ IMPERIAL PIANO - Treia Music

As the video shows, Lyla's baking is more than a hobby. It's a God-given talent. She effortlessly mixes, rolls and decorates cookies by hand, complete with bright pink frosting to look like adorable pigs. All with a smile on her face. With skills like that, it's no wonder that her dream is to own her own bakery someday.

Little does Lyla know that "someday" will be as soon as tomorrow.

"Lyla has no idea that we're surprising her with her own bakery for 24 hours, and we're gonna try to raise 100,000 dollars."

And not just any bakery, a bakery owned by Lia Holt, winner of TLC's "Next Great Baker." Holt told Fox News "As soon as I met Lyla, my heart just melted. I'm like, I was a kid and my dream was to be a baker, own a bakery. Now, I can't wait to help make her dreams come true."

As Rocket leads a blindfolded Lyla to her soon-to-be bake shop, he tells her "I have a surprise for you." The blindfold lifts, and Rocket tells her that for the next 24 hours, the bakery Lyla sees will be hers, and that the entire city is invited to buy her cookies. Lyla's reaction is nothing short of heartwarming.

@charlie This girl suffering from a rare disease has no idea her entire life is about to change in 24 hours…🥺 #fypp #kindness #foru ♬ Happiest Year - Jaymes Young

But wait! There's more!

Rocket had one more surprise. After learning about Lyla's fondness for pigs, the TikTok star surprised her with a baby piglet of her very own. I don't know which is more endearing: the swaddled piglet or the girl's sweet happy tears after getting everything she's ever wanted.

The bake sale was held on Sunday, Nov. 7 and the money earned went toward her CRPS pain treatment. If you want to support Lyla's dream, you can do so through this website.

Rocket finds people to help like Lyla through his Dreamr app. On his website, he writes:

"We dream of a world where there is an abundance of opportunity for everyone. We dream of a world where our fellow human beings remember that in their heart lives a profound force of limitless potential. It is our core belief that if the world can inspire a dream within someone, it is within their power to achieve it."

He encourages you to share your own dream on the app, which you can find and download here.

True

After over a thousand years of peaceful relations, European semi-superpowers Sweden and Switzerland may finally address a lingering issue between the two nations. But the problem isn’t either country’s fault. The point is that the rest of the world can’t tell them apart. They simply don’t know their kroppkakor (Swedish potato dumpling) from their birchermüesli (a Swiss breakfast dish).

This confusion on the European continent has played out in countless ways.

Swedish people who move to the United States often complain of being introduced as Swiss. The New York Stock Exchange has fallen victim to the confusion, and a French hockey team once greeted their Swiss opponents, SC Bern, by playing the Swedish National Anthem and raising the Swedish flag.

Skämtar du med mig? (“Are you kidding me?” in Swedish)

Keep ReadingShow less
Family

Mom comes out to her 7-year-old as a sexual assault survivor. The discomfort was worth it.

Sometimes speaking our truth can help history from repeating itself.

Canva

Almost all the important conversations are uncomfortable

Sarah Shanley Hope's story is frighteningly common.

As a kid, she went over to her neighbor's house one day to play with her best friend. While there, her friend's older brother sexually assaulted both of them.

Hope was only 6 years old.

Keep ReadingShow less
Humor

Woman shares wedding album her mom made that’s making people crack up

The photos were beautiful, but there was something hilariously wrong with the captions.

Woman's wedding gift from her mom is making people laugh.

There's no denying that a wedding day is a special memory most people want to hold onto for the rest of their lives. It's the reason people spend hundreds or thousands of dollars on wedding pictures and hand out disposable cameras to guests—to capture memories from all angles, including behind-the-scenes moments that you may forget due to the nerves beforehand.

One mother of the bride decided to take her daughter's beautiful wedding photos and create a special personalized photo album. But upon further inspection of the gift, the bride noticed that something was amiss. Niki Hunt, told Good Morning America that when her mom, Sherry Noblett, gave her the wedding album at brunch, she admitted she may have messed up.

"She’s very crafty, so usually when she says something like that, it’s something really small. I'm thinking some of the pictures are askew, or whatever," Hunt explained to GMA.

Keep ReadingShow less

It all can happen at just the right time.

Media outlets love to compile lists of impressive people under a certain age. They laud the accomplishments of fresh-faced entrepreneurs, innovators, influencers, etc., making the rest of us ooh and ahh wonder how they got so far so young.

While it's great to give credit where it's due, such early-life success lists can make folks over a certain age unnecessarily question where we went wrong in our youth—as if dreams can't come true and successes can't be had past age 30.

Keep ReadingShow less
Mental Health

The danger of high-functioning depression as told by a college student

Overachievers can struggle with mental health issues, too.


I first saw a psychiatrist for my anxiety and depression as a junior in high school.

During her evaluation, she asked about my coursework. I told her that I had a 4.0 GPA and had filled my schedule with pre-AP and AP classes. A puzzled look crossed her face. She asked about my involvement in extracurricular activities. As I rattled off the long list of groups and organizations I was a part of, her frown creased further.

Keep ReadingShow less
Joy

Her boyfriend asked her to draw a comic about their relationship. Hilarity ensued.

The series combines humor and playful drawings with spot-on depictions of the intense familiarity that long-standing coupledom often brings.

All images by Catana Chetwynd


"It was all his idea."

An offhand suggestion from her boyfriend of two years coupled with her own lifelong love of comic strips like "Calvin and Hobbes" and "Get Fuzzy" gave 22-year-old Catana Chetwynd the push she needed to start drawing an illustrated series about long-term relationships.

Specifically, her own relationship.

Keep ReadingShow less