Right now, I am in the beginning stages of my longest, consecutive run of schools for this Fall. The non-stop travel and speaking to students from all over the country is lots of fun. Of course, I miss my 4 boys and wife.
Thursday was the start with Marywood University in Scranton, PA. A.J. picked me up from the airport. He is the perfect host. Energetic, easy going, and gives you all the information you need. At 5pm, we had dinner with the Peers on Wellness group on campus. They are a dedicated team of students working hard to make a positive difference in the lives of the students on their campus. Throughout the dinner talk, they asked insightful questions about how to be most effective in peer education. You could sense their passion for wanting to be the best they can be. Then it was right to the main presentation of "Can I Kiss You?" Fun and lively is the best way to describe their incoming class which is the largest class they have ever had!
Staying on the theme of largest incoming class ever, my next stop was Northwest Missouri State University who also has their largest incoming class ever. Every year this stop is fun. They have me present 2 sessions of "Can I Kiss You?" to over 800 students in each session (they cannot fit all the students into the auditorium at once and so they split them up). Right from the start, the audiences were fantastic!! You could tell they were ready to get involved and they did!
The biggest honor for me has been the e-mails coming in from survivors who were in the audiences. Their words are empowering and inspiring. Every time I receive an e-mail from a survivor, I am honored! No applause can ever equal the power of a single e-mail sharing with you a person’s strength and determination.