Strive to accomplish the impossible, find hope in every situation, and identify character traits to help overcome challenges.
Those were a few of the messages offered to students at Empowerment Day on April 15 at the Centre Wellington Community Sportsplex in Fergus.
Originally a concept of Drayton Heights Public School graduates Alexis Kuper and Tate Driscoll, Empowerment Day helps “boost up students,” said Drayton Heights student council member Dajung Yoon.
Fellow student council member Cassie Hobbs added, “It’s like a mini WE day.”
Empowerment Day is run by the Drayton Heights student council – 64 students in Grades 7 and 8 – and is meant to show students they’re making a difference in the world and in their community.
“It’s almost like you kind of have to go outside of your comfort zone in order to show this is [how] you’re making a difference, this is your chance,” said Sydney Detweiler.
Student council member Ashton Zimmerman helped organize the event this year.
“It’s really exciting and I’ve never done this in my life but I kind of like talking about this kind of stuff in front of people,” she said.
The April 15 event featured Canadian astronaut Col. Chris Hadfield, Me to We’s Molly Burke, Olympic champion Brian Price and local musician Sarah Smith.
The Fergus Sportsplex was filled with over 3,000 Grade 5 to 8 students representing 35 schools in the Upper Grand District School Board. The event ran from 10am to about 2:30pm.
Though students were asked to bring a donation for the food bank, they attended the event for free. Each of the participating schools contributed to the cost of the event and Drayton Heights raised $25,000 through sponsorships with the Optimist Club, RBC, Copernicus Educational Products and the Upper Grand District School Board.
Hobbs said, “It’s kind of cool how such a small school just kind of came up with an idea and then to see what it’s coming to.”
Hadfield’s main message of the day was to strive for the impossible.
Canada’s first space walker and commander of the International Space Station told students that when he was just 10 years old he wanted to be an astronaut even though Canada didn’t have a space program.
“I think it’s important to remember that impossible things happen and they don’t just happen by random choice, they happen because of a huge amount of work,” he said.
“And amazing work can happen.”
Hadfield began changing who he was so that if the opportunity arose he could become an astronaut.
“I joined the air cadets and I learned to SCUBA dive and I learned to speak other languages and I tried to keep my body in shape,” he said.
“Amazingly enough, within that same lifetime I went from being that little kid with the impossible dream … to being an astronaut who’s going to fly on three different spaceships and to actually have a chance to live on board the international space station.”
Hadfield said he began preparing to be commander of the space station even when he was in cadets.
“You can absolutely count on your life to go wrong. It’s just normal,” he told the students. “That’s what life does, but what really makes the difference is how you react to it and you have a way better chance of reacting well if you’ve gotten ready, if you’ve practiced, if you’ve learned, if you’ve studied, if you’ve tried things over and over.”
He challenged students to acknowledge the sections of the book store or library they gravitate to and look for the impossible goal they can strive to achieve while considering those sections of interest.
“The beauty of giving yourself a long-term impossible goal is it helps with what to do this weekend,” Hadfield said.
“Because if you’re thinking some day I would really love to be a heart surgeon, then maybe this weekend you might read a book about it or watch a video about it … and by Sunday night you will be a different person than you were on Friday; you will have started to turn yourself into who you dream of …
“So take control of your own life because it is incredible where that life can take you.”
Molly Burke, motivational speaker with Me to We, also spoke about challenges.
“You are not defined by the challenges of your life, you are defined by the person those challenges have turned you into,” she told students.
Burke was diagnosed with a rare genetic eye disease when she was four years old and was losing her sight by the time she was in Grade 8. She spoke about the bullying she experienced and the lack of support from her former friends.
When she was in Grade 8 Burke went to Ottawa with her class and celebrated her 14th birthday. Her friends told her they would throw her a party and do her hair and makeup.
“I couldn’t see it, but I knew that something wasn’t right,” she said. “I might be blind but I’m not stupid; I know when a camera flashes in my face.
“Later I found out what they had done. They put whipped cream in my hair instead of mousse; they used makeup to write all over me. My face became a canvas for their hateful words – ‘loser,’ ‘pathetic,’ scrawled across my forehead and cheeks (with) eyeliner, lipstick.”
The pictures were then posted to Facebook.
“Everyone was liking, commenting, laughing, sharing at my expense,” Burke said.
After another incident where she was left alone in a forest, Burke left elementary school.
“Months earlier I’d been diagnosed with situational depression which is exactly what it sounds like, depression triggered by a troubling situation in one’s life and I had a few,” she said. “I just started to feel like I was this walking, talking disability; a burden on everybody around me.
“I had lost my vision, my friends; what was left of me, the essence of what made me Molly, was gone and I was just a shell of a human.”
However, she found hope again and began keeping a journal as an emotional release.
“I believe that everybody needs that outlet in their lives, whether it’s kicking all of their emotions into a soccer ball, running it away, printing it onto a canvas,” she said. “We all need that outlet.”
She emphasized how important it is for each person to realize how amazing they are.
“Others believing in you and supporting you can help you to find hope, but until you truly believe in yourself, you will never feel the true depth of hope in your life,” Burke said.
“Never be ashamed of who you are, never be embarrassed about what you have been through, be proud that you have made it this far in life because that in itself is an accomplishment.”
She also encouraged students to ask for help when they need it.
“Asking for help is not failing – failing to ask for help when you need it is,” she said. “Stop trying to live for other people, stop trying to do what’s cool, stop wearing clothes you don’t like or listening to music you don’t care about because it’s cool. Be who you are living inside you. Be yourself.”
Olympic gold medalist Brian Price also spoke about using personality traits to overcome his challenges.
Price was coxswain for the men’s eight rowing team that won a gold medal at the 2008 Olympics and a silver medal at the 2012 Olympics.
However, his journey to the Olympics began when he was seven years old, after being diagnosed with leukemia.
“Now, as an adult, I look back on that time and I realize that having that cancer changed me in two very distinct ways,” he told students. “The first way is mentally, the way that I think. The second way is physically, my body.”
He said three character traits that kept him going while he received treatment as child were determination, perseverance and courage – traits that translated well into his Olympic career. He challenged students to find the character traits they rely on when life isn’t going as planned.
“Those aren’t just things you scribble down on a piece of paper; those are now you,” he said.
“If I’m going to talk to your teachers and your friends they would be able to say similar words because you exude those words … Choose what they are and then you live by them.”
Price said physically, cancer stunted his growth and made him the perfect weight and height to be a coxswain.
“Without having had cancer I know I never would have become a three-time world champion, Olympic gold and Olympic silver medalist,” he said.
Price’s experience with cancer, his character traits and his size, all helped him bring home those titles, he said.
“If you have the opportunity to help a friend like I did achieve a dream, achieve a goal, help them out with something, I can tell you there’s no better feeling than helping someone else achieve what it is that they set out for,” he said.
Burke echoed that sentiment.
“You cannot search for happiness because you’re not going to find it that way, but when you search for somebody to help, happiness will find you,” she said.
“When you reach out to other people in need, when you give your pain purpose, you will find happiness in your life and it will being happiness to the lives of so many other people who need it.”
