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SANDY, Utah (KSL) — Meeting Glenn Stucki isn’t a difficult task. You don’t have to track him down, and you certainly don’t have to introduce yourself. All you have to do is pass within his sight.
“Hi, I’m Glenn,” he says to nearly everyone he sees. “I paint pictures to inspire kids.”
Stucki may be the least shy man you could ever come across. Those who stop are often left with an “I love you” and an extremely tight hug. He loves chatting up anyone who walks by his kiosk at the Shops at South Town — even when those walking aren’t interested.
“If I felt bad, I would have given up a long time ago,” he said, discussing how he feels when people just stroll by without stopping. “I just have to understand that they’re busy, and that they don’t understand that what I’m offering will help their lives be better.”
What Stucki’s “offering” are prints of his paintings — most are of superheroes and other pop culture characters. This part of his life began when he became known as the man who gave out his paintings to kids he encountered at his job at Walmart, where he works as a greeter and a cashier.
“My main goal is to help them change the world with love,” Stucki said.
There’s no doubt he has a routine after he introduces himself to passersby. He immediately launches into an abbreviated life story.
“When I was 11, I was in a big accident,” he said to a couple of children. “I was in a jet ski accident. I was following my friend, I was ‘s-sing’ through his wake, and I went to go in front of him, and he ended up 360. He hit me in the head, and it caused a lot of brain damage.”
Stucki says he ended up in a coma. When he woke up, he couldn’t speak, and couldn’t move.
“I thought I was in a dream, and I didn’t know what to do,” he said. “But my uncle had painted me pictures of superheroes, and put them up on my wall. And that’s what inspired me to keep fighting.”
No matter how many times Stucki tells his story, he does so with the same smile and the same level of enthusiasm. But now, he has a new story to pass along — he was invited to appear with the CEO of Walmart at the company’s headquarters in Arkansas, to recognize the good work he’s done by helping kids with his paintings.
“I felt so honored,” he said. “I was just, like, blown away.”
With the help of the big box retailer, Stucki’s trying to get his paintings in hospitals.”To get my pictures into Primary Children’s Hospital, and in hospitals all across Utah,” he said.That’s why when Stucki approaches people at his kiosk, he isn’t selling prints of his art at all — he’s giving them away, for whatever people can pay. Every dollar goes his organization, “Change 4 Love,” to get his originals to the kids who need them most.
“I just work and work and work, until it’s like, accomplished,” he said.
Shyness simply isn’t in Stucki’s vocabulary — but the desire to spread love will always be inside him.
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