Hi everyone!
This is a very special blog because this is the story of what happened at the white house park on Saturday night from my point of view.
If you don't know already don't worry, I will explain it all.
So it all started at the checkin table for the Cure Fest Welcome Dinner and, everything was going just as planned. I met so many amazing people, and had some very good food.
There were some speakers and a dance performance for two lovely girls who passed from DIPG. After the dinner and presenters were done, everyone got together and started walking to the Whitehouse park for the candle lit vigil, where there would be speakers, poems and performances. It was a beautiful night outside. In fact, it was kind of hot. But even so, the spirits were up because it was Cure fest and there was hundreds of people just waiting for the festivities to begin.
When we got to the gates to go into the park, we were stopped. No one told us what was going on so we just waited, because like I said before, the spirits were very high. While we waited there was singing and speeches through a microphone but even so, it didn’t really help that we were waiting for 2 and a half hours.
After waiting for too long and going too late into the night for some of the kids, about a third of the group left, including me. After I left, they waited for about 20 minutes more, then gave up.
I felt enraged, sad and disappointed in the human race. It might not have been the entire human race that made the mistake that night but it was people of high priority who I guess considered children with cancer and their parents a threat.
The next day, was the whole day of Cure fest and also the day I spoke. I found out that day that apparently President Obama had left the White House from a door near the park entrance. I have no idea how this relates to not letting parents and their kids with cancer in for a candle light vigil, but here is where it gets interesting.
At the beginning of my speech I gave a minute to talk about what happened the night before. I talked about my feelings and that I actually went back to my hotel room and cried about it. I was asking questions like “Why do we seem like we are a threat.” We aren’t trying to hurt anybody. We are just trying to save kid’s lives.
I quickly got over the fact that we didn’t do the candle light vigil, but it still burned a whole in my heart. The day turned out to be amazing. I met so many awesome people and had such a good time. The time turned quickly and before I knew it I was up on stage doing my speech. (check out my Youtube Channel)
After the wonderful day of Curefest and meeting such great people, it had to wind down and come to a close. I was sitting at a picnic table reading a comic book I got at one of the booths, when Mike Gillette came up to me with his phone and said “The Washington Post is on the phone. They want to interview you for a story.”
I obviously said yes and answered questions like how do you feel about what happened last night and do you think president Obama should be blamed. I answered truthfully and remembered to talk politely about president Obama. I didn't realize how big of a deal this was. Later that night back at the hotel room, my mom called me over to look at an article online - it was the Washington Post article! It was insane. Something that we thought was bad was turning out to be a great thing. Childhood cancer was finally getting the attention it needed.
The next day I flew back home with my family. Once we got off the plane, we realized we had been contacted by at least 5 media outlets. I was shocked. I didn’t know it would blow up so much! When we got home I had an in person interview and a Skype interview, then I could finally go to bed.
Early next morning I went to the CBC radio station to have an early morning interview on the Eyeopener. After that I went to school, but not for long cause I had to come home for another skype interview at one o’clock. You can learn more about these on my Facebook page.
The final outcome of my feelings for this is I’m glad it blew up quickly and childhood cancer got the right attention, but I’m scared that people only focused on the part that the secret service had to apologise. I’m kind of tired having been through all this activity but I think it was for the best.
Bye my Angels. Thanks for reading!!