Josh is the CEO and founder of Lions View Development. Given that he’s a busy entrepreneur, he has a very full schedule each day, as he has countless responsibilities. However, he always find time for the work which he finds to be the most important and most rewarding of all, his charity work. In his free time in the evenings or over the weekends, he dresses up as Batman (complete with his luxury car which has been transformed into a Batmobile!) to visit sick kids in hospitals or in outpatient treatment centers or at their homes after returning from a hospital stay. It started as a one time favor, but when he saw how happy that first child was when he walked into the room, Josh decided right then that he would continue doing it and thus far, he’s helped give out 20,000+ toys to sick or underprivileged children.
Similar to many other teenage boys, he grew up having an interest in exotic cars. One of his cousins was a member of an exotic car club. This enabled him to bring home a different exotic car almost every week during the spring and summer months. In the beginning, he was only allowed to go for rides but as he got older, he was allowed to drive the cars. After awhile, he developed a reputation for driving high end cars so occasionally he would receive phone calls to give rides to kids in the neighborhood. One day, he received a call that changed his life and those in the community. He was asked if he could give a ride to an 8 year old girl that had cancer and always dreamed of going in a Lamborghini. Luckily that week he had a Yellow Lamborghini Gallardo Spyder. He coordinated the surprise with the family to meet the girl at her house in between chemo treatments. It was an experience that changed his life forever and enabled me to visit thousands of sick children since then.
“I was sitting in front of her house and I see a little girl being brought outside her house in a wheel chair. The girl is looking down at the ground and to say the least she doesn’t look happy. A few moments later she looked up and she sees a bright yellow Lambo in front of her house. Her ENTIRE face lit up with the biggest smile I’ve ever seen! She got into the car and i drove around for 30 minutes. The top was down, music was blasting, and her smile remained on her face the entire time. As soon as she was wheeled back into her house, the mother started crying hysterically! I thought that maybe I said something or did something offensive since it was my first time giving a ride to a sick child so I apologized to the mother. She said “No, you don’t understand why I’m crying. My daughter was diagnosed with cancer at the age of 4! She had more than 20 surgeries, she had to be quarantined, she had a bad infection which caused her to become paralyzed.” The mother continued and said “this is the first time I’ve seen my daughter smile since she was diagnosed 4 years ago!!” I realized that if i was able to have such a positive impact on this girls life during a time of despair by doing something so simple, I knew that I wanted to do whatever i could to do it more often,” said Josh.
For approximately 7 years he continued visiting sick kids and giving them rides in the various exotic cars. One day, he heard on the news about someone in Maryland named Lenny Robinson who would dress up as Batman and use his convertible Lamborghini to visit sick kids. He thought that it was amazing since he never heard about anyone else using their exotic car to help the sick kids. A few years after that, he heard unfortunate news that Lenny was on the highway and was killed by getting run over from a car that didn’t see him. Josh never had the privilege to meet Lenny but wanted to continue his legacy and visit the sick kids as Batman. He sent his car to Impressive Autobody in Oceanside, NY to have his car transformed into a “Batmobile”. He teamed up with the NYPD, NCPD, and other various agencies to make the experience even better for the kids.
“I truly feel honored to be able to visit thousands of sick kids and meet so many amazing and inspiring families. Their strength, courage, belief, and determination always amazes me. I recently created an Instagram account “Batman Real Account” to inspire others to do simple acts of kindness. I always tell people that “kindness is something that everyone can afford to give,” added Josh.
Aryeh worked hard to put this all together and is very active in the community. He was been awarded as a Social Media Summit special honoree for his selfless and unwavering dedication to help sick children smile. He was also awarded the Leadership Award and the Chai Lifeline Award.
Pictures and videos from various events can be seen on social media- Batman Real Account or via his organization’s website which is www.SmilesThroughCars.com