‘No substitute for hard work’

Guest speakers share their stories of following their passions

UWCHLAN >> Change starts with me in making the world a better place.

That’s the theme of the TEDx presentation as part of the “Agent of Change” service project at Marsh Creek Sixth Grade Center of the Downingtown Area School District.

Marsh Creek Principal Thomas Mulvey told the students that they may question if they are too young as 12-year-old students to change the world. Maybe parents wonder if children need to be adults to make changes, he added. It requires action, he said.

“Wouldn’t the world be wonderful if every child when asked what he or she wanted to do, answered, I want to change the world?” Mulvey asked. “Every one of you has the potential to do that.”

At the end of the TEDx presentation on Thursday, he quoted Anne Frank, who died in a concentration camp during World War II at 15 years old. Frank said, “How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.”

Guest speaker, Ed PickUp, an adventure racer and long-distance cyclist, completed his first distance cycling ride across the USA in 2010 at 19 years of age, simply because he decided to do it. He described it as everything he wanted it to be an exhausting, testing challenge. During the course of about 50 days he cycled 4,300 miles and learned several lessons along the way.

He was one of the youngest people to ever cycle the Trans Am Trail solo. He was unsupported without a team, meaning if he had a flat tire, he had to fix it himself. The following year he cycled over 4,000 miles across Europe, from Nordkapp, northern Norway, to Tarifa, southern Spain. The journey took him from the depths of the Arctic Circle to the heat of the Mediterranean. He was featured in the documentary, “Inspired To Ride.”

Competing in the Transcontinental taught him to push himself further than he thought possible, a common lesson about himself he learned in long-distance cycling. He began cycling as a teenager because it was a form of transportation that he enjoyed. He decided to ride 30 miles to school and he found it exhausting. He began pushing himself further distances, something he found “exhilarating.”

“You never know what your limits are until you push yourself,” Pick-Up

GINGER RAE DUNBAR – DIGITAL FIRST MEDIA Pictured are the 19 sixth-grade students who are members of the TED Ed club who hosted the event Thursday with advisor Laura Roth and the TEDx guest speakers. The presentation kicked-off the school-wide Agent of Change service project at Marsh Creek Sixth Grade Center.