The look of amazement on their faces when I walked in wearing my running leg was priceless.
The teacher was writing something down while I was speaking and the principal sat in to listen so that he could give me some tips afterwards.
I told my story from my heart and started off by telling the students how their commit to character chart meant a lot to me. It is a chart that the school board uses of different attributes including courage, caring, respect, responsibility and others. I explained to them that I wouldn't have made it so far in my running if it wasn't for these things.
Next I talked about the question that is most asked to me - how did I lose my leg. That really got their interest. I tried to throw in some comedy afterwards but they might have been a little sad from this.
I got my son to pass my legs around to them so that they could see the difference and they seemed to like that. I am going to get some cast molds for the next time to show the kids.
At the end I played some of my TV interviews for them. It turns out the teacher was writing out the messages that they might have got from me. She wrote 18 different ones including - never give up - believe in yourself - we are all the same, even though we are different - your body will adapt if you ask it to do - don't let a major problem ruin your life. That was a great idea and she made a assignment out of it.
I told them to try something that they are passionate about even if its not running and stick to it, if you like it you will do good. Hopefully some will be interested in running after this
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One other thing I asked them to do is try to do a random act of kindness for someone, even if its small it will make you feel good
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My son was there with me and when I told the story of how proud I was of him when he did his first track meet a while ago he beamed with pride. When I was about to walk out a girl came up to me and told me "you inspired me in there" . That made me feel good
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I will have some modifications to make but overall it went good. I think the more that I do of these, the better I will get, like anything. The school is going to have me do it again in front of all the students next Wed. which is disability day.
Tomorrow I will be saying a few words at a charity dinner in Barrie to help raise some money for the Sick Kids hospital. A friend is doing the Disney marathon run in Jan.
