RACHEL BENNETT: We are finally on a path to knowing our son and I can be the parent... an advocate, Henry needs me to be.

HAROLD RUDOLPH: I thought to myself, I could not be any more different than this person and I couldn't understand what they might have to help me stay sober.

JOHN MORELLO: At a time in my life when I was in so much pain, I somehow had the grace in that moment, to be thinking of somebody else's feelings.

WES HAZARD: Tonight's theme is "Everyday Heroes."

♪ ♪ Most heroes don't wear capes.

In fact, heroism is usually... pretty quiet, discovered in moments of resilience.

Those times when, small acts of kindness can change a life.

When courage is expressed getting through adversity, no matter how much the odds are stacked against you.

Tonight, we celebrate those who, through their strength, compassion, and generosity lift us up, when we need it most.

♪ ♪ MORELLO: My name is John Morello.

I was born in Detroit, Michigan and raised in Worcester, Massachusetts.

Uh, for the past 20 years, I've been an actor and been performing in mostly school settings, across the country, across the world.

Yeah.

I understand you're in schools quite a bit and I am just curious, what drew you to that work and what keeps you going back?

I started out as an actor and I wrote a one-man show and a teacher was in the audience and she thought, well, this show has, uh, some relevance to young people, coming of age kind of stuff.

And she said, "Why don't you come do this show for our school?"

And I loved it, and she started telling other teachers about it and it became a mission.

You perform, I imagine you use a lot of different methods, techniques, but specifically storytelling.

What do you see as the power of storytelling?

If you want to look at your own story as like being born into a novel.

Your setting was chosen for you.

The supporting cast was chosen for you.

Everything was laid out for you and you've just obeyed.

And something happens right around those teenage years where you take the pen away from the author and you start to write your own story.

On the kitchen table is a free lunch card, I'm supposed to show the woman in the school cafeteria, so they'll let me eat.

It's a big neon pink card... so the whole school knows that I'm poor.

The trouble is...

I can't get into the kitchen because on the floor blocking the doorway, are my brother and his girlfriend passed out from doing drugs all night.

I step over them, I grab my card, and I go off to high school.

It's a school where, my last name is already known because of my sister who graduated and my two brothers who dropped out.

One of those brothers is in the grave from a drunk driving accident.

The other, seems like he wants to get there pretty quick.

I'm living in a housing project.

My dad is a single dad who works nights in the mail room of a bank.

Before things like divorce, throat cancer, and losing a child... he was a successful engineer.

Somehow my dad keeps smiling.

And at every housing authority inspection, the lady tells my dad, "He keeps the place neat as a pin."

I get high outside school dances, with kids whose older brothers are just as screwed up as mine.

Music is my big escape, but even that has so many traps.

I mean, I, I go to a concert, it's not about the music, it's about how wasted we can get.

One time, I go into my brother's box of cassette tapes and I find a bag of coke.

I pretend this is normal.

I go to school maybe... twice a week, just to keep the juvenile department off my back.

And when I do go, I tell dirty jokes in class.

So they'll kick me out and send me down to this little room near the office, where I sit alone in a cubicle all day.

It's junior year.

I'm failing all my classes.

One day...

I'm sitting in my Latin class because the stupid Latin teacher won't kick me out.

(audience chuckling) The stupid Latin teacher's name is George.

He's old.

He has nerd glasses and... thrifted clothing.

And he wears concert shirts when all the other teachers wear suits.

He has a strange eccentric accent.

And he yells at me, "Mr. Morello, out in the hall!"

He gets me out in the hall and he asked me a question that a lot of people have been asking me my whole life.

"What the hell is wrong with you?"

(audience chuckling) And I'm super honest.

"I don't know."

(chuckles) "Mr. Morello, you're very funny.

"You're an infantile megalomaniac... "but you're funny.

You remind me of a comedian, Lenny Bruce."

(audience chuckles) "He was filthy, but he had a point.

You should read his book."

"Uh, I don't really read that much, you know."

"His book is titled 'How to Talk Dirty and Influence People.'"

(audience chuckles) "Well, maybe I'll read that book."

(audience laughter) "I don't know what you're going "to do with your life, Mr. Morello, "but I do like having you in class.

"Come to school tomorrow.

"I'll give you some time to tell jokes if you give me some time for Latin-- deal?"

"Deal."

I show up the next day, I tell some jokes.

The class is laughing.

He's laughing.

It feels great.

I go back again the next day, same deal and this time after class, him and I start talking about comedy and music and I tell him I like his concert shirt.

It says "The Kinks."

(audience reacts) "Oh, you like The Kinks?"

"Yeah, uh.

I got one of their old records.

"W-- when my brother died, I got all of his albums.

"So, uh... (sniffs) I'll see you tomorrow."

Now I'm going to school every day (chuckles) just to be in his class.

And I'm doing the work and I'm passing his class.

I'm conjugating Latin verbs all day.

(audience laughter) Like, so much conjugating.

I, I can't stop conjugating.

(audience chuckles) You know what?

Every minute that I'm conjugating the pluperfect of the verb "scribo"... (audience laughter) is a minute that I'm not thinking about my life and my problems.

One day he keeps me after class, "The drama teacher was asking about you.

"There's a part in the school play.

It's very funny.

I think you should do it.

You'll be fabulous."

I do the school play.

I like it.

I start passing my other classes... and soon I make it to a place that no boy in my family has ever made; senior year.

Guidance counselor.

"Here's a list of all the colleges in the country."

(audience laughter) "Here's the two that you can get into."

(audience laughter) So I take off to some weird college out in "Misery"-- Missouri, excuse me.

(audience laughter) And I'm a theater major and the only way I'm able to pay for this is government loans and grants, and money that my mom and dad send me, like cash tucked inside of long letters from home.

And when I do go home like Thanksgiving break, I hang out with my friends, but...

I would just rather be back at theater in the college.

You know, it's the old, "This is boring, I can't wait to get back to Missouri."

(audience laughter) Said no one ever.

(audience laughter) I go back.

I graduate, and, uh...

I start acting And I write a one-man show and it talks about the things that I faced growing up, and the things that I went through.

And I'm told that when I perform it for young people, it helps kids feel seen.

But that only happens because a Latin teacher saw me.

A teacher that I never saw again.

Until... (audience chuckling) years later, I'm out at a concert with my wife at the time, in line at the concession stand and I hear this old man's voice behind me.

"Mr.

Morello."

(audience laughter) I turn around, "Oh my God, you're alive!"

(audience laughter) We hug.

And I tell my wife... (voice breaking): "This is that teacher I... told you about."

And he grabs my wife's arm, "Did he ever tell you the stuffed animal story?"

I don't even remember the stuffed animal story.

(audience chuckles) "I used to keep a big stuffed animal on my desk, "facing the class.

"And one day, some knucklehead student came in, took a piece of paper and wrote the words, "'I am gay,' "and stuck it on the stuffed animal.

"And the whole class was laughing "and they were laughing at me, "and I looked over and I saw the paper "and I...

I, I froze.

"In those days, I had to keep my life... "a secret.

"And I just tried to ignore it, just let it be.

"And then, Mr. Morello walks into class, "late as usual, "and he sees the paper "and the whole class watches him walk up to my desk, "take the paper and a big black marker "and he writes the words.

"'So what?'

"Sticks it back on there.

"The class stopped laughing.

"Believe me, Mr. Morello, I never forgot you."

At a time in my own life when I was in so much pain, I somehow had the grace in that moment to be thinking of somebody else's feelings.

George died a little bit after that.

Tonight I think of George.

I think of, how lucky I was to be able to be a hero, to a hero.

And I think I learned how to talk dirty and influence people.

(audience laughter) Thank you.

(cheers and applause) ♪ ♪ BENNETT: My name is Rachel Bennett.

I grew up in Boston, Massachusetts.

I work at Perkins School for the Blind.

Um, I'm a mom to two kids and currently live just outside Boston.

What do you wish that more people knew about accessibility and how that relates to just being in society?

I'm really curious.

I think you have a very unique perspective.

We all benefit from access.

You and me have visual processing abilities that fall within a normal range.

For people with disabilities, their access needs may fall out of the everyday access needs that we all have.

And those aren't special needs.

They're just human.

It's not extra.

Do you feel that storytelling plays any kind of role within your work?

And if so, how?

BENNETT: Oh my God, yes.

A core value for me is... stories?

They're powerful.

Stories are advocacy and stories can change the world.

Because what I realized, is that in order to change systems, you have to change people's minds and systems are made of people, and so stories are a way to connect and build community and hopefully, connection and collaboration.

♪ ♪ Soon after, Henry's born, he's failing to thrive or meet milestones.

At age one, we rush him to the E.R.

for life-threatening complications from a stomach bug.

There's a moment in the E.R.

room, Henry is fighting to hold on... and the doctor turns to me and says, "Sing to him."

I, I, I can't breathe, I can't speak.

I, I can barely hold myself up.

Eventually, I make some type of sound, and eventually the E.R.

team gets him back.

The next day, my husband Carson and I are nauseous from the shock of almost losing our kid.

We notice Henry... start to moan and wiggle underneath all the tubes, and he turns to us, deep blue eyes open.

That moment... that's the moment we realize, nothing in this life is a given, but we have to learn to show up anyways.

We spend years navigating medical specialists and diagnoses.

Henry is having a really hard time.

He's a gentle soul, but every day he has meltdowns where he screams, kicks, throws things.

He's not interested in toys, books, anything.

We have no idea what to do, and no matter what we try, we feel like we're failing Henry.

When his preschool teacher acts on her suspicion that he's not using his vision, he might be blind, and invites a vision specialist to a meeting; we hear the words that change our lives.

Henry has behaviors of CVI.

What?

I-- I've never heard of this before.

CVI.

It stands for cerebral/ cortical visual impairment.

It's brain-based blindness.

I spent five years being Henry's mom without knowing how much he's on the blindness spectrum?

His behaviors communicating to us, him trying to survive in a world that is not accessible, in a world where nobody knows he's blind.

We're parenting Henry, without even knowing him.

And his teacher's observations that he wasn't looking at learning materials jump-starts our path to understanding.

Who knew she would become such a hero to hand us this gift of knowledge?

And leading up to all this, our, our family's confronting the grief and trauma that comes with raising a child with disabilities, and complex medical needs.

And doing so in a society that actively chooses not to be fully accessible or inclusive.

Where at every turn, I have to prove that Henry is worthy and enough.

I have to cut a path forward for him.

(sighs) And this is true for so many parents of kids with CVI, which is misunderstood and underdiagnosed, even though it's the leading cause of childhood blindness and low vision.

Armed with this diagnosis, I dive into the research and the online information.

I find a CVI parent community.

I find my people.

I can lean on them and ask them all of my questions.

For example, Henry is in the zero percentile for weight, for a really long time.

He won't eat for more than ten seconds at a time.

And so I ask my fellow CVI parents, "What is going on here?"

They say, "Try this.

"Put a black mat down on the table.

"Get a brightly colored plate with tactile sections.

"Have him face a blank wall, "keep the room quiet, and describe the food on his plate."

We try this the next night.

Henry clears his plate and motions for more.

(laughs) Oh my God.

We have a win!

Finally... we're figuring this out.

We're finally on a path to knowing our son, and I can be the parent, an advocate, Henry needs me to be.

And eventually, I help other parents do the same.

Henry has changed me in fundamental ways.

He's changed the course of my life and my work.

Today, I work for Perkins School for the Blind.

We empower families and professionals with information, connection, and community and guidance on this uncertain journey.

When a parent tells me that our resources helped their kid get access to learning in school, I thank Henry.

When a parent shares how our community gives them hope and real answers, I thank Henry.

And when a parent finally gets a CVI diagnosis, after years of wondering, I thank Henry.

He's a hero to so many families.

Henry is 12 now, and in middle school.

(chuckles) We are navigating yet another difficult phase of health concerns and new diagnoses.

He has a whole list of them now.

He's a rare kid with an extremely rare genetic condition, which means... we don't know what's coming next.

We are still on this uncharted journey.

It's still really heavy.

My Henry, my first child, he's a kid on the blindness and neurodiverse spectrums who makes others feel seen.

Whether it's family, friends, teachers, the cashier at Dunkin', the subway driver, he shows others that they matter.

He'll pepper them with questions about what they're having for dinner or which subway line has shuttle buses that day.

Henry loves riding the T; it's the subway here in Boston.

He knows every stop on every train line.

He's the one announcing every station at full volume.

(chuckles) (audience laughter) Carson and I love to take rides with him, because we get to see him in his full joy and flex his expertise and talents.

We know him now.

For so long, he was a mystery.

For so long, we were so afraid for our kid.

We still are.

But, we can find joy in a life filled with hard things.

Henry inspires me to help others find that joy.

Henry?

He's my hero.

Thank you.

(cheers and applause) ♪ ♪ RUDOLPH: My name is Harold Rudolph.

I'm originally from Michigan.

I work primarily now as an actor.

I'm a former educator and school counselor.

How did you get into acting?

Uh, I was working on my master's degree in San Francisco and someone suggested, "Go be an actor."

And I was like, "What?"

Because I had no idea what that was.

And, uh, so I worked some background in films and I enjoyed it very much, and having summers off as a teacher, I was acting every summer.

So I've done like 40 films probably at this point.

And yeah, I mean there-there... you can't do a production without them.

Uh, but I think a lot of people don't really know what it's like to be a background actor or an extra, as many people might know it better by.

Yeah.

What is something people might not know about that work?

Uh, I think it's a wonderful opportunity to see... um, how the sausage is made when it comes to films.

Uh, there is some magic that goes into every single production and to be present while that magic happens is kind of exciting.

Tonight, when this audience does hear your story, what would you hope that they most take away from it?

I would hope that they take away the fact that, um, change is possible.

♪ ♪ When I sobered up at 38, I discovered that I was all of the characters in The Wizard of Oz.

(audience laughter) A mindless scarecrow, a cowardly lion, and a heartless tin man.

And of course, the man behind the curtain, furiously working the levers, trying to maintain an illusion.

My yellow brick road began in a dingy church basement, where it seemed very unlikely to find a superhero, let alone someone to guide me on my journey to The Merry Old Land of Sobriety.

But there she was, a superhero, five feet tall.

She was wearing a tracksuit, powder blue silk.

Oleg Cassini.

(audience laughter) It was the '80s.

(audience laughter) Her shoes were blinding, and her hair was whipped within an inch of its life.

(audience laughter) I thought to myself, I could not be any more different than this person and I couldn't understand what they might have to help me stay sober.

She listened to my drivel... and she twirled one of the many impressive rings on her manicured finger, and then she looked me dead in the eye and she said, "No one gets here by accident."

And I was pissed.

(audience laughter) It was the first time anyone had seen me behind one of my many carefully chosen masks.

And I heard her.

She was right.

She had given this scarecrow a little bit of knowledge, and I stuck that in my pocket.

I didn't get sober then.

I still had lots of drinking to do.

The year I was to enter high school, my father shot my mother and then shot himself, committing suicide.

So I entered high school as "that kid."

I was already used to being eyed with suspicion.

I was always the kid with glasses, a stack of books, a violin and history of an unfortunate lisp.

When I felt the effects of alcohol, I really thought I had found a solution for my otherness.

It's an easy club to get into... and a hard one to get out of.

I somehow managed to graduate from high school and... (sighs) soon began to experience the jackpots of an alcoholic life.

Cash and prizes.

(audience chuckling) Great jewelry.

(chuckles) (audience laughter) I came to, strapped to a bed in Detroit Receiving Hospital.

I was a little upset that they'd interrupted my day drinking... or night drinking...

I drank 24/7.

I didn't know what day it was or where I was.

I was complaining just a little too loudly, just one too many times.

And the nurse came over to my bed.

I thought she was going to say something nice and kind because she had a kind face, and mostly, because there was a light behind her head and like rays were coming out of her, like she was an angel.

(chuckles) (audience laughter) Instead, she leaned in and in a superhero voice, at superhero volume, (shouting): she said, "Go to A.A.!"

(audience laughter) And not so surprisingly, I heard her.

(audience chuckling) And she was right.

And she had given this cowardly lion a little bit of courage to go back and try again.

I was staying in a halfway house and I had agreed to plant some flowers, some sad geraniums, in a sadder patch of earth, in that zip code where the last of us go, when it's the end of the road.

The wife of the man who owned the halfway house came out, watching me sweat in the sun, June 1 in 1999, hot and muggy in Michigan.

And she said, "What the hell is so bad that you have to keep killing yourself?"

And there it was again, the truth.

And the tectonic plates beneath my world shifted; not just a little.

And my tin man's heart began to beat... and I made a decision.

The third step of the program is to make a decision and I made a decision to work the program to the best of my ability for one year.

(chuckles) That's over 25 years ago now.

(cheers and applause) Thank you.

(cheers and applause continues) That courage took me into an audition room and I got a scholarship to go to college.

So the scarecrow had a piece of paper.

(audience chuckles) That love, that heart that beats now, that heart that I had tried to drown... And pro tip, an ocean of cheap vodka can't wash away that kind of grief and loss.

That heart beats strong and proud today.

The program promises, "We will love you until you learn to love yourself."

And that promise has come true in spades.

I don't know where you are in your journey on your yellow brick road, but when you go into a room... and you feel that feeling that you are exactly where you're supposed to be and you know that you belong there as much as the moon and the stars, that just might be home.

And when you find yourself in that room, I suggest you remind yourself... no one gets here by accident.

(audience reacts) (cheers and applause) ♪ ♪