Leo Hayes chapter honours member with memorial scholarship

Students at the Leo Hayes High School have decided to honour the memory of one of their members in a very special way, by offering a memorial scholarship to a graduating member of the Best Buddies program.

Tanya McBride, the resource teacher at the school, sent this letter explaining how the program changed the lives of many people, and the inspiration for the scholarship.

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I have a story to share with you - while it is very sad, it also shows the effect a program like Best Buddies can have.

Last June, I was approached by two boys who were very keen to be involved in the Best Buddies program.

I decided to pair them up and match them with one of our students with multiple special needs who started in grade 9 this fall. This way, if they had difficulties, there would always be a TA there to assist. I took them down to the resource room to meet Michael in the fall, a little leery of their reaction. Michael was in a wheelchair, nonverbal and tube-fed. He always had a soother in his mouth, and a tambourine attached to his footrest so he could "stomp out a tune".   After some initial shyness, one of the boys sat on the floor next to Michael. I told him that he could pull up a chair - he replied "All of his life he's had people looking down on him. I want to give him the chance to see what it's like to look down at someone." I knew then that they were a good match.

The boys met with Michael almost every day at noon hour. When his family's house burned, they helped to man the table at a Best Buddies bake sale to raise money for them. When we decided that Michael needed a monitor screen in the room where he napped, another Best Buddies bake sale was organized, and these two boy played a key role again. They exchanged Christmas gifts with him, and sat with him at the movie outing we went to in April.

Friday was our year-end Best Buddies party. We went swimming, and then had pizza and cake to celebrate our 19 graduating Buddies. The TAs were planning to try to take Michael in the pool for a few minutes. Sadly, Michael had a seizure the previous Thursday and was hospitalized. He passed away on Wednesday afternoon.

The boys, and all other students, were told of Michael's passing on Thursday morning. The Best Buddies' executives immediately went into action - they gathered together the memory cards from the cameras we'd used throughout  the year for our outings, and went to the store and had prints made of Michael and all of his friends. They then spent the day with Michael's two Buddies, creating collages, which were then signed on the back by Best Buddies, teachers, TAs, administration, and guidance counselors. The collages were given to Michael's parents.

I had ordered t-shirts for the graduating Buddies, and had two left over. I gave these to Michael's Buddies. They wore them to Michael's funeral yesterday, where they served as altar boys.

Michael's father spoke at his funeral. He talked about how, even though he was non-verbal, he had an impact on people. He spoke of how, recently, his wife came home and said that she had gone through the Tim Horton's drive-through, and the boy at the window said "Hey! You're Michael's mother." He said that it meant so much to her - the boy in the window was one of Michael's Buddies. He also talked about how, a few weeks ago, he and Michael had been in the mall and a teenaged girl came up and said "Hi Michael!" and had a chat with him. Michael's father said that he was so pleased to see Michael's peers interacting with him outside of school - this girl was one of our Best Buddies' executives.

We have decided that, as a way to carry on Michael's memory, we are going to have a Michael Baldwin Memorial Scholarship fund. The recipient will be a deserving graduating member of the Best Buddies program. Plans are already underway to have a barbeque to start fundraising.

I just wanted to share this story - one never knows the impact a program can have on so many lives.

Tanya

Tanya McBride
Resource teacher
Leo Hayes High School