“Tony’s story will shock you, make you hate him, envy him, pity him, relate to him, make you root for him and love him all in one exciting, sad, tragic and hopeful hour. Your kids will not be bored and will leave changed forever with a new and real perspective of drugs and their consequences.”
Every now and again you'll meet someone that is extra special. These types of people are extremely passionate, influential and seem to be well respected. That was the case when I met Jaime from FightsOn Inc. My agent and I were pretty skeptical when Jaime started communicated with us about the event she wanted to put on in her community. Not because it's not possible but she literally was putting this event together with six weeks or less. She was looking for a substance abuse and motivational speaker that could address not only the students but the parents also. I forgot to mention that the school denied her the ability to have me present in front of the students at the campus, making this event a success even more difficult because how do you get students and parents to show up to a presentation on a Sunday evening.
Well, when I met Jamie it became instantly apparent that not only was this lady super woman but she had some major pull around town. She managed to get the local college to donate their basketball arena and heavily promoted the event. With these open community student events you never know how the turn out is going to be but I was pretty confident this one was going to turn out great. Before my speaking event I got to hang out with several of the teens from the town and get a feel for the stuff they were going through and give them a little bit of my story at a more intimate level. I wish this was something more of because I enjoy the more personal settings and feel like I can make a much bigger impact.
The attendance for the event was fantastic! I would guess there was at least 500 people in the crowd and there was several students that showed up to the event without their parents and that was impressive for me to see. Everyone was super engaged and we probably did at least 30 minutes of questions and answers to the conclude the event. I really want to thank everyone at FightsOn Inc, they are an incredibly passionate group that are making a difference in their community!