Role models come in all ages |
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Written by JEFF MIELCAREK, Director of CYO Athletics
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Saturday, 24 October 2009 00:00 |
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We often hear about athletes who are viewed as role models for our youth. Those we most often hear about are professional athletes, but college and even high school athletes can serve as great (many times even better) role models.
Of course athletes aren’t the only people who serve as role models for our youth. Teachers, priests, parents, coaches, youth ministers, scout leaders and many others can also serve as role models.
 This fall I had the pleasure of seeing first-hand that role models can come in all shapes, sizes and ages. In the CYO cross country program, two junior high student-athletes were doing incredible volunteer work for the less fortunate.
I was approached by Michael Baugh, an eighth-grade runner from Sylvania St. Joseph, and his mother. Michael was starting a campaign called “Save the Soles.” He has set out to collect new or gently used athletic shoes (running shoes, basketball shoes, cleats, racing flats, etc.) that will be passed on to kids who are in need of these. He said he thinks there are kids out there who either don’t participate because they do not have the proper shoes or they do participate, but don’t have the means to afford the proper shoes for the activity. His goal is to change this so that all kids will have the opportunity to participate with the proper shoes.
Michael set up collection bins at the CYO cross country meets, the CYO office, the CYO Athletic Complex, Sylvania St. Joseph, and Toledo St. Francis de Sales High School, where he will be a freshman next year.
One week later I was approached by Rob Loeb, the CYO cross country coach at Toledo Gesu Parish. He told me about a dynamic seventh-grade member of the Gesu team. Her name is Beatrice Thaman and she is working on a campaign called “Give to Grow” that she quietly began two years ago.
Her goal is to collect vitamins and funds to purchase vitamins that she will then send to Guatemala. Her idea began when her family adopted Rose, from Guatemala. Beatrice sat down with me to talk about her efforts and she told me that she “was shocked to hear that 47 percent of the children in Guatemala do not survive to their 5th birthday. Of the ones who do survive, many of them are so malnourished that they have brain damage because they do not have the proper nutrients that could easily be supplied with vitamins.”
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| Beatrice Thaman and Michael Baugh have independently organized programs to benefit others. |
She went on to say, “I know that this could have easily happened to my sister and I decided that I wanted to do something to give the children of Guatemala a chance for a better life.”
Beatrice has already sent 250,000 vitamin tablets to Guatemala and now has the necessary funds to send another 750,000 tablets. Her goal is to eventually be able to send 2 million vitamin tablets to Guatemala. She was presented with a National Prudential Spirit of Community Award in Washington, D.C., which came with a $10,000 award, which, of course, she used to purchase more vitamins.
To say that Beatrice and Michael have both impressed me with their initiative and efforts would be a huge understatement. I was floored by both of them. Here are two junior high student athletes that are both doing something that many of us as adults have never even considered.
As I have talked to people about their efforts I have realized that these two are not only doing great things for those less fortunate than themselves, but at the same time they are also serving as very positive role models for the other youth in our CYO program and the adults who hear about their efforts. They are ministering to others in the same way that Jesus would like us all to minister to one another.
They have shown me and many others that role models do come in all shapes, sizes and ages. We need to look around and find people like these to whom we should look up. I am so proud to say that both Michael and Beatrice are CYO athletes in our diocese.
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Last Updated on Wednesday, 27 January 2010 14:04 |
