Jonas getting ready for a sock drive (Courtesy Love in the Mirror)

At ten years old, Corona attends elementary school, plays tennis—and works as a CEO.

“If you want to make the world a better place, take a look at yourself and then make a change,” he sings into a shy giggle.

Standing 4-feet-11-inches tall, Corona busies himself sorting shirts, socks and boxers into separate stacks.

“We’re going to Skid Row tomorrow,” he says, smiling.

Corona spends at least one Saturday a month tending to the needs of Downtown LA’s homeless, and has been doing so since he was only four-years-old.

Renee Corona, Jonas’ mother, had gathered her family to volunteer serving food and drinks to the homeless several years earlier. She had no idea her son would love it so much at such a young age.

“I’m not a morning person,” says Renee Corona through laughs. “He’d get up out of bed and be like ‘mom, it’s time—we gotta go,’ and I’d be like, can’t we just miss?”

The answer from Jonas Corona was never ‘yes.’

He spent the next two years of his childhood pouring cocoa during the winters and punch in the falls, until one morning he saw something he’d never seen before.

Renee Corona remembers her son running away from his station serving drinks, and hiding behind her legs.

She says both she and her husband had to teach the young Corona about drugs and addiction early on. She remembers her son asking thoughtful questions and taking it all in stride. 

Renee Corona was not, however, ready for what Jonas would see that morning.

“When I was six-years-old, I saw a homeless kid,” says the young Corona. “I didn’t know there were homeless kids.”

“He said, ‘what do I do? Why are they here, mom?’ ” says Renee Corona with tears in her eyes as she remembers the panic and concern in her son’s questions.

She says Jonas could not understand how someone his own age could be homeless. Jonas Corona wrote a letter to his mother that night in simple words telling her he wanted to do more to help.

So at six-years-old, Jonas Corona started his own charity and took some poetic license in naming it Love in the Mirror, after his favorite Michael Jackson song.

Jonas hums the rest of the song as he finishes dividing donated clothes into men’s, women’s and children’s boxes.

Seven-year-old Jonas with toiletries in hand (Courtesy Love in the Mirror)

But he’s not done with his work on this half day off from school.

He locks up the small office where they house donated goods and travels, this time, to an elementary school in Long Beach. There he talks to students about how they can be more involved in their community. 

His next stop? A pre-school on the other side of town where he tutors three and four-year-old children in math.

They immediately scream his name when he walks through the door.

“He helps us,” says Emma Jordan, one of Corona’s mentees. “He can be the teacher too if he wants to.”

The next morning Jonas looks tired as he unfolds a table for the donated clothes, but perks up as soon as the long line down a skid row street approaches.

He’s busy now for the next few hours asking for sizes and coming back with something for everyone. After the long line disappears Jonas Corona gives everyone who volunteered that morning a high-five.

As Corona and his parents load their car, he says he’ll play tennis, his first love, the rest of the day.

Corona says he wants to be a star tennis player one day, and that he’ll use his popularity to create an even farther-reaching charity like his hero Andy Roddick.

Until then, Corona's starting with the man in the mirror, and no message could have been any clearer. 

Reach Staff Reporter Tahsin Hyder here. Follow her on Twitter here.