Going for the Goals

Travis Roy said he has been setting goals for himself ever since he was fifteen years old. These goals, he said, ranged from playing hockey at a Prep school to being in the National Hockey League. But after a tragic accident during his first collegiate hockey game, he said his list of goals quickly evaporated.

Roy was chosen as the guest speaker for the fourth annual Meredith E. Drench Lecture series, Defying the Odds: Rehabilitation and Perseverance after Spinal cord Injury, on April 4 in Sargent College at Boston University.

After the small auditorium filled quickly, leaving no empty seats, Roy began to explain his story.

He began to speak of when he first got to the Boston University campus, as a freshman, and how he didn’t want to tell people he was a hockey player. He discussed how he was “always humble,” and wanted to be a well-rounded person who didn’t want to be quickly judged for being a hockey player.

“Friday, October 20^th, 1995,” Roy said this day would end up changing his life forever.

With a “sense of pride,” Roy put on his “scarlet jersey” and was ready to play in his first Boston University hockey game, and the first game of the team’s season. Eleven seconds into being on the ice, Roy crashed headfirst into the boards. He said he had a “natural instinct to get back-up,” but the “awareness of where [his body was, was] gone.” After being checked out by the sports trainer who came onto the ice, Roy asked for his father, who had “coached him his whole life,” to come down. Once there, Roy said he said to his father, “I made it.”

Roy explained he had never broken a bone nor been to the hospital before, and after those eleven seconds he said he found himself in the hospital for about 6 months. He said he knew “that was the end of the road” for his hockey career. Roy said he was paralyzed from the shoulders down.

“Life was now over as I knew it,” Roy said, as he discussed the severe sadness he experienced while in the hospital.

After overcoming many milestones in different hospitals and rehabilitation centers, Roy said, he went back to Boston University in being what he called “survival mode.” He said he was taking it “one hour at a time,” while trying to figure out who he was. After a lonely freshman year, Roy went on to say that he came back to school sophomore year knowing he would have to be more confident.

Graduating in 2000 from the School of Communication, Roy said he went to on become a motivational speaker and activist. Upon finishing, Roy said that with the advances in technology, he is now able to live on his own and he has “got a lot to look forward to.” He said his days from Boston University are very different from the days he has now because he no longer lives hour-to-hour, but month-to-month and year-to-year because he said he knows what to expect.

Boston University student going into the Sargent College, Leila Serino, said Roy was “very inspirational. As someone who wants to go into the healthcare field, it was good insight into how people with disabilities feel and how they want to be treated.”

Roy finished his lecture by saying, “I hope that you want to be great at what you do.” Roy said he “can still enjoy the things around” him and that it is the little things, the little goals, that matter most now.

The Benevolent Boothbay Businessman

Robert Allen Jones, the philanthropic man who went beyond the success of his business endeavors by advocating for small community projects, died on Tuesday, February 28, 2012, in his Boothbay Harbor, ME, home. He was 74. He had Corticobasal degeneration.

Known as the man who “did it all,” says friend Cathy Sherrill, Jones brought life to struggling projects and saw them through to the end. But Jones chose to do most anonymously.

Jones was born in Quincy in 1937. Growing up in Belmont, where he met his wife, Linda Giles, Allen attended Tufts University and was president of his fraternity, Alpha Tau Omega. After becoming an officer in the US Navy, in 1962, he helped in blockading Soviet ships headed toward Cuba, in what is known now as the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Jones also brought his leadership qualities to other groups, including the Cambridge Salvation Army, Cambridge Boy Scouts and Kendall Community Group.

Subsequent to building the Cambridge Athletic Club in 1979, Jones and his company, The Athenaeum Group, redeveloped an old rubber factory in 1982 into what is today One Kendall Square. There are now restaurants and offices, but Jones’ contributions to the Cambridge area did not end there.

Not only did he, with the help of his business, give life to bustling activity in Kendall Square, but also he is one of the main reasons the Boothbay Opera House is still standing.

Cathy Sherrill shared her story of how Jones made this happen, saying, “he initially loaned the money needed for the non-profit Opera House organization to purchase the old building, and then a few years later he challenged the board of directors and the community at large to raise $500,000 dollars.  If we were successful, he said he would match it.  We were successful, he lived up to his word and we ended up paying off the mortgage.”

Sherrill was not the only one with a story of how Jones helped a struggling group stay above water. Susan Richards, current coordinator of the City of Cambridge Agenda for Children of Afterschool Time, shared her story of how Jones worked with her to help the Community Art Center in 1994.

When the center was scheduled for renovations and was going to temporarily be homeless, Jones took them in and offered the Center a space in his, recently renovated, Kendall Square.

“We moved there and we were there for four years… we didn’t know how long we would need the space. But he didn’t care. Once he took us in, he didn’t ever talk to us about when we should get out. He just let us stay as long as we needed to,” says Richards.

These are just a few examples of how Jones would act as a key contributor in giving back to his city of Boothbay, where he and his wife spent most of his retirement together. Apart from being a dynamic figure in his community, Jones and his family enjoyed traveling the globe: going from Russia to the South Pacific to China. But Jones took a special liking to Bermuda, traveling there almost annually with, and without, the added company of his family.

His survivors include his wife, Linda, his three sons, Rev. David Grishaw-Jones, Allen Richard Jones and attorney Robert Giles Jones, his brother Richard Jones and his nine grandchildren. He was buried on Saturday, March 3, 2012 at the Congregational Church of Boothbay Harbor in Boothbay, Maine, leaving behind an active legacy in his community and within his family.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Information taken from:

http://hallfh.frontrunnerpro.com/runtime/61465/runtime.php?SiteId=61465&NavigatorId=242672&op=tributeObituary&viewOpt=dpaneOnly&ItemId=1147853&LinkId=221

 

Photo taken from: http://hallfh.frontrunnerpro.com/runtime/61465/runtime.php?SiteId=61465&NavigatorId=242672&op=tributeObituary&viewOpt=dpaneOnly&ItemId=1147853&LinkId=221

Yes We Can! But Will We?

It’s the right that could change the fate of America in an instant: Voting.

In 2000, CNN reported that only 51 percent of people, who were eligible to vote, actually did. These statistics preempted the 2008 “Vote or Die” campaign, which was lead by many celebrities and targeted young adults.

Successfully winning the votes of young American in a 2:1 ration when compared to the Republican candidate, John McCain, President Obama’s simple slogan, “Yes We Can,” brought out young Americans. But will these voters come out again to show their support for their presidential candidate of choice? Will people come out to vote at all?

The only way to figure out the potential answer to this question is to ask the people themselves who will be participating in the voting process.

Interviews with people between the ages of 19 and 54, offers a quick glimpse of what some potential voters were thinking.

Some young would-be voters gave a “newbie” prospective.

“Yes, I’m going to vote this election because I want to make sure that we don’t elect anyone who will jeopardize our economic stabilization with irrational thinking and planning,” said 19-year-old Will Shaker, current sophomore at Wake Forest University, majoring in English.

Continuing to question whether voters will be taking part in the upcoming election, two Boston University sophomores give their perspective.

Nineteen-year-old College of General Studies student, Nekou Nowrouzi, majoring in Health Science said, “As of right now, I will not be voting because I have not yet registered to vote in the state of Massachusetts. I’m not really too familiar with the candidates either. I haven’t really been keeping up, but had I kept up, I would have loved to vote.”

Fellow classmate, Leila Serino also studying Health Sciences in the College of General Studies, said something a different: “I am planning on registering to vote on Monday and I think it’s important that everyone votes because that’s what this country is all about: freedom and democracy. By not voting you’re taking like that right… you know what I mean that privilege for granted. There are other people ein other countries that cant even vote and some people in this country don’t even vote.”

Next, Joshua Pederson, Boston University Humanities professor from Cambridge was able to give his view on voting. Speaking as the 20-30-year-old age group representative, he said, “I’ll definitely vote.  But lately, I’ve been thinking that it’s important to get even more involved, so I hope to volunteer for at least one campaign–to phone bank, help with mailings, or canvass.  I’ll probably also try to make as many political donations as my budget allows.”

After stating that he would definitely be voting in the upcoming presidential election, 54-year-old investment banker, Donald Stukes, of Bedford, NY, said, “As an African-American, our ancestors fought for the right to vote, so it would be a crime as to not exercise such right. If one does not vote, then you can’t get the right representatives in office who can advocate positions consistent with your views.”

Voting has the power to change the lives of all Americans in a flash, but the only way to successfully do this is to be a part of the process. Just one vote holds the ability to change the life of a potential candidate forever. Getting involved in your community like Pederson would be a way to get further engaged with voting but doing the bare minimum is just as crucial.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sources:

http://edition.cnn.com/2000/LAW/11/columns/fl.dean.voters.02.11.07/

 

http://articles.boston.com/2011-12-17/nation/30541619_1_young-voters-david-plouffe-president-obama