Wallaceburg students heard some inspirational words from a Hollywood star on Friday morning.
Canadian actor Adam Beach provided a pair of speeches to students at WDSS.
“What I’m trying to do is inspire the kids to actually find their hopes and dreams and goals after school,” Beach told the Sydenham Current following his first presentations.
Beach has starred on the silver screen in movies such as Smoke Signals, Joe Dirt, Flags of Our Fathers and Windtalkers and on the small screen in Law & Order: Special Victims Unit and Walker, Texas Ranger.
During his presentation on Friday, Beach spoke about his difficult childhood.
When he was eight-years-old, his mother was killed by a drunk driver. Only eight weeks after his mother’s death, his father was found drowned outside of the First Nation Reserve where they lived in Manitoba.
Beach said he wanted to share his experiences with the Wallaceburg students.
“High school is our only time where we are spoon fed to learn. We’re taken care of, our food, our responsibilities, we don’t have to get a job or anything, we just have to learn. What I’m giving them, when they’re done school, they can come to my film school and I can teach them the industry and I can give them jobs.”
Beach added: “My hope is to help them find that opportunity in a healthy way. I tell them my experience about gangs, drugs, alcohol, Hollywood, the entrepreneur, suicides, traditional guidance, opportunity.”
Beach, who has visited the area in the past, said he had a great experience in the Walpole Island and Wallaceburg communities once again.
“It’s always good. It’s nice to see that because of technology it has allowed for a better communication, a better understanding of our differences and we can actually work together. We can find the world now in an app and we can participate in that app. Our younger are smarter than our older generation because of that technology, so we have to nurture that growth in some way.”
Steve Tooshkenig, the coordinator at the Walpole Island Youth Centre, said it was a coordinated effort to bring Beach to town.
“We’ve teamed up with the high school WDSS, the Harriet Jacobs Centre. We were out doing a presentation to the kids because it is part of ownership at the Youth Centre, so we asked them who would you like to see, what would you like to hear about. One of the youth spoke up and said they wanted to see Adam Beach, I missed him last time. I said anything that you ask for will be given to you is you truly and passionately feel like that, if that is what you want.”
Tooshkenig added: “Right after we got here, I drove back towards Walpole and I got on the phone with Adam and told him one of the kids wants to see you, he said ‘great, what day?’ So I got in touch with the high school and a couple other people, and here we are.”
Tooshkenig said Beach delivered a great message to the students.
“The message was, we all have our story. Whether you make it to a level of success, whether it is in media, it doesn’t matter. It totally matters how you go and help somebody else, that is the message I got from Adam. I’ve been able to chat with him in the evening and today, and I said we need to get the message out to the youth that you’re going to have to work for everything and earn.”
Beach also spoke at Walpole Island Elementary School on Friday, before making some other stops around Walpole Island.
