We were so excited to have Spencer West visit our school last week. Spencer doesn't have any legs because when he was born, they didn't work properly. So the doctors amputated them when he was five. Spencer grew up like any other kid...he skateboarded and hung out with his friends. When he was in high school, he was even on the cheerleading team. He showed us a short video of his cheerleading routine...it was awesome!
While he was in college, Spencer took a trip to Kenya with an organization called Free the Children. He got to build a school, carry water from the river and hang out with the Kenyan people. That trip changed his outlook on life. He discovered that having "stuff" (like a pool and nice car) weren't what made him happy. He wanted to help others and so he got a job with Free the Children speaking to people all over the world and encouraging them to change their thinking and how they live from "ME" to "WE".
Last June, Spencer and two of his buddies climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro (the largest mountain in Africa) to raise awareness and money to help the people there, get safe drinking water. Spencer did some of the climb on his hands and some of it in his wheelchair. He has now started walking from Edmonton to Calgary (300 km) to try to get more people good drinking water. We are following his blog and you can too at:
http://www.freethechildren.com/get-involved/campaigns/we-walk-4water/ When we were talking about his speech today, we decided to make a donation to his "We Walk 4 Water" project using the money we have collected by recycling our juice boxes and pop cans.
Our school decided to help by participating in Free the Children's project called "We Create Change". We brought in all the pennies we could. At the beginning of Spencer's speech, we found out that our school had filled
53 penny bags! That means that
53 people will be able to get safe drinking water for the rest of their life. The bags were lined up along the front of the stage and you can see some of them in these pictures. You can also see Spencer applauding us for all of our hard work!
Some of the students in our class go to a club called "Me to We". During the club's meetings, we learn more about how we can be good global citizens and make a difference in our school, community and the world. The Me to We Club members got to meet with Spencer before he spoke to the whole school and had their picture taken with him.
From Spencer's speech, we learned...
-one little thing can make a difference
-it's OK to need a little help
-everybody can make a difference
We also wanted to say a huge thank you to Mr. Kap for taking the pictures you see here!
We were wondering...
-Have you heard of Spencer West?
-How do you show you are a good global citizen?
-Will you get involved with Spencer's "We Walk 4 Water" campaign?
