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When I was about five years old my friends always used to tease me a lot and used to
always get on my nerves a little bit. They used to push me away from things I wanted
to be in. They used to play games outside. They knew about my disability. My sisters
used to help me out because they protected me. Whenever my sisters were not around I
always tried to protect myself, but I couldn’t do too much. One time I did have a few friends
that used to live next door to me and they used to help me out. Well, they moved away
by the time I was a teenager. When I got a little older than that we moved on. By the
time I was about five years old I was in a special ed school, but before I got to the
special ed, I was in a regular school, Pentworth Elementary. I was a patrol guard –my my
sisters and I were the same thing. I tried to do lots of things with other classmates
but couldn’t really get that much and get that far. My sisters advanced ahead of me
and I had to go to a special ed school. When I got to the special ed school, I think I
did a very good job. I had to drop back a year. I got into the school by maybe helping
other students. I was helping them out but working with them. I saw that they needed
more help and I said to myself, “Nothing is going to stop me from helping them.”
When they needed help, I transfer myself by saying to myself, “I have to do something.”
So what I did was encourage myself and my other friends by saying, “We have to get
through this by not looking at us as being so unable to do things.” We also had a group
called the Kawanis Builders Club which was like an advocacy group. We didn’t know exactly
how to do it, but when we formed, I said we should try to maybe help disabled people and
form it as a disabled group by working together –try to help people with disabilities and
maybe just regular students. We did a lot of stuff. I was president for eight years.
I think I got that encouragement from my family, from my mother, basically. She likes to help
lots of other people and when she is at church she likes to get involved in lots of other
things. I am basically like her; I like to always help other people. I was very observant
on how she was always encouraging other people, how she was always helpful, how she wanted
to be friends with a lot of people, and be more useful for a lot of people. I think that
is what got me into being more of an advocate and leader. I followed in her tracks.