Clark Barnes teaches students importance of finding purpose

GUELPH – Calgary Stampeders wide receiver Clark Barnes visited St. Joseph Catholic Elementary School in Fergus and taught Grade 6, 7 and 8 students about the importance of finding purpose. 

Barnes started his Feb. 27 presentation by talking about his family history, as he said it’s important, particularly during Black History Month, “to start with the ones who came before me.”  

He showed the students photos of Antigua, the Caribbean island where his father is from.  

Barnes said five of his ancestors were brought from Africa to Antigua as part of the slave trade and they were given the last name Barnes, a British name. 

“A lot of people from Africa moved to the Caribbean as slaves,” Barnes told the students, who sat listening quietly in the school library.

Grade 7 teacher Brady Ricci stood near the front of the room wearing a number 14 Stampeders jersey with Barnes’ name across the back as well as his signature. 

Ricci and Barnes go way back, Barnes said – “Mr. Ricci was my first best friend.

“Everyday I’d come knock on his door, or he’d knock on mine, and we’d just play.” 

They called their favourite game “brothers,” Barnes said, and it was simple – “we’d just pretend we were brothers.”

Barnes said his grandfather moved to Canada from Antigua to give his children, Barnes’ dad and aunt, better opportunities.  

“It doesn’t take too much to live a good life in Antigua,” Barnes said, but his grandfather was very purpose-driven, so he worked hard to move to Canada for a better life. 

Barnes said without his grandfather’s purpose-driven mindset, he wouldn’t have had the opportunities in his own life that led to him becoming a professional football player. 

It was also purpose-driven Black people such as Harriet Tubman who paved the way for Barnes’ success. 

Using maps and other images on a projector, Barnes taught the students about how Tubman helped lead enslaved people through the Underground Railroad. 

“She believed it was her God-given purpose to free people from slavery,” Barnes said. 

Even when bounties were placed on her head, Tubman didn’t stop, thanks to her purpose-driven mindset, he said. 

The Underground Railroad went through Fergus and the nearby Queen’s Bush Settlement, Barnes noted, and “the people of Fergus would actually help out – people just like you,” he said, offering food, shelter and directions. 

“Fergus is a huge part of Black history and Black heritage,” Barnes said – and that includes the ancestors of many children in the room. 

“When you think of Black History Month, if you don’t have African decent you might not think it has anything to do with you, but it really does,” he said.