McKenna Pope of Garfield, New Jersey, is not your average 13-year-old. And for Pope, what started out as just an idea for her little brother ended up changing how Hasbro sells the Easy-Bake Oven all over the world.

Pope’s little brother, Gavyn, who is four-years-old, loves to cook. From toy cooking sets to helping his parents make dinner on a daily basis, he does it all.

Pope says, “He’s the chef of the family!”

Then, this year, Gavyn asked for and Easy-Bake Oven for Christmas. So when Pope and her parents went to the store to buy an Easy-Bake Oven, they were really disappointed.

Pope says, “The boxes were pink and purple and flowery. I feel they were telling boys, ‘this toy isn’t for you because only girls can cook.’”

So instead of just letting it go, Pope started a petition on a website called Change.org. Then she went to work. She told everyone she met and asked them to tell people too. She also shared her petition on Twitter and Facebook. And just like that her petition had more than 45,000 names.

Motivated by how unfair it was, Pope decided to truly pursue this and decided to get more support on a petition rather than just writing a letter, and this proved successful.
Hasbro invited Pope’s family to their headquarters and showed them a gender-neutral oven that will be available later this year.