When Vijay Garg’s 13-year-old son, Amol, asked him to review an email he planned to send to Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer this past January, he was in disbelief.

A senior program manager at Microsoft, Garg had the right to be concerned.

“I’ve worked for Microsoft for eight years and I’ve never sent him an email,” he said.

But Garg knows his son well. Amol and his friend Chirag Vedullapalli were sending Ballmer an email to ask for donations for the charity that Chirag founded — Creative Children for Charity, 3C for short.

Chirag, 12, has put on five or six events, with Amol joining him recently.

Amol and Chirag consider themselves artists. Both are state finalists in the national Reflections Program, where students have a chance to express themselves via art.

But rather than simply using their artistic talents to their advantage alone, Amol and Chirag have put them to better use.

On Feb. 21 at the Beaver Lake Lodge in Sammamish, 3C put on its biggest and most successful event yet — the Canvas and Cupcake Fund-raiser. Tickets were $20, and each child received a cupcake, as well as a canvas to paint a cupcake on.

Going into the event, Amol and Chirag hoped to raise $750. By the time the night was over, they had $1,000.

While Amol never got an email response from Ballmer, Costco’s CEO W. Craig Jelinek met with him and Chirag. Costco and Fred Meyer also donated supplies for the Canvas and Cupcake Fund-raiser.

Vijay Garg admitted that he originally thought the idea of 3C seemed impossible. Once Amol and Chirag started working together, though, it became apparent how much two young people can accomplish.

“Amol and Chirag’s chemistry worked out really well,” he said.

All proceeds from the Canvas and Cupcake Fund-raiser went to the Make-A-Wish Foundation. A representative from the foundation came to the event, which relayed to them a message of how important their charitable work is.

The $1,000 from the event provided roughly half of the funding to make a vacation wish come true for a child with a life-threatening medical condition. That alone was enough for Amol and Chirag to plan another event, which will take place in April.

“We always thought that the whole idea of Make-A-Wish Foundation helping kids who are (ill), and making their wishes come true, was really touching,” Chirag said.

Aside from the handful of adult volunteers and around 20 child-volunteers, the two put the fund-raiser on by themselves. That’s what they have based their charity around — kids helping kids.

“We want to actually show that kids can make a difference,” Chirag said. “It’s not just parents that can do anything. Kids are powerful, too.”

For roughly three months prior to the Canvas and Cupcake Fund-raiser, the two met every Sunday. Each week, they planned for a different aspect of the event. Lessons included business planning, marketing and leadership.

“Now that we know that we’ve already done successful things, it motivates us even more, and by doing these workshops, we get to know the equation,” Amol said. “And once you know the equation, you can apply it anywhere and do it on a bigger scale.”

Chirag said that the latest event’s marketing plan is what allowed it to be as successful as it was. Previous events 3C has put on haven’t had the same level of marketing.

“We believe that we reached out to more people because of our fliers,” he said. “We had quite a bit of volunteers, too.”

Chaitra Vedullapalli, Chirag’s mother, said that the message was spread to the school districts in the area, as well.

Chirag attends Chief Kanim Middle School in Fall City, while Amol goes to Pine Like Middle School in Issaquah. The fact that the two were in different districts — Issaquah and Snoqualmie — allowed for more awareness of the event.

“They went to the school districts and asked them to kind of flush it down into all the schools,” Vedullapalli said. “It was a top-down approach where the district actually distributed the fliers in the schools and online.”

The parent volunteers helped give guidance to Amol and Chirag, but this was their charity.

“What we have realized is that the kids have the same mental power as adults,” Vedullapalli said. “They just need the supervision. They just needed a little direction and they came up with the best ideas and the best organization.”

Despite donating their time and talent to the successful Canvas and Cupcake Fund-raiser, the two kids aren’t satisfied. They’ve already set a goal between $2,000 and $2,500 for their April event, which will be tailored to accommodate 100 people.

They have an even loftier target they want to reach by the time they hit high school.

“By ninth grade, we want to set a world record for the most kids doing art at the same time,” Amol said. “Our goal is to inspire a million kids to donate time and talent through art to charity.”

Pete Treperinas is a student in the University of Washington Department of Communication News Laboratory.