Day 57 ~ More Thomas Memories Made

The last few days have been exciting for Thomas!  On Thursday night, he had his DARE graduation.  DARE stands for Drug Abuse Resistance Education.  His class selected his essay to be read at the ceremony, so Thomas, along with 3 other 5th graders shared their thoughts on the importance of being drug free.  Then by random drawing, Thomas was selected to read his essay at the next O'fallon City Council meeting.  He was quite impressed!   Here are Thomas's thoughts that he shared that night:

Dear Myself,

My name is Thomas Mattei

     I am 11 years old, I’m in 5^th grade, I’m great at video games, I have 2 parents and 4 brothers and 1 sister, I live in 7 Little Oaks Court  O’Fallon MO and I like to play with my friends and play video games, and I’m a little nervous, sometimes excited, or I’m angry or sad.

     My strengths are being a good friend and family member, I’m good a video games like I already said, I’m wanting to play hockey which I did play a while back and was really good at it, I’m also going to play trumpet and I’m in the choir at my school.

     I feel great about the D.A.R.E program, and it’s important in 5^th grade so young people can learn how drugs affect your life and they can cause bad injuries and sicknesses.

     In middle school I want to play football, be in the band, and I want to join the computer club, and I also want to join any other club that seems interesting and similar with me.

     When I’m in high school I’m still thinking of football, band and that’s all I’m probably going to be in until I find out about more clubs.

     I think after my graduation I’m going to go to college complete my Eagle Scout and get a scholarship to BYU Idaho and between college I’m going to serve a mission since I’m Mormon and I’m going to preach the lord and teach others about god and my religion.

     In my future I think it’ll be wise to be drug-free cause, I have a heart defect and even smoking can cause heart disease even for non-smokers, so I need to keep my heart safe and I’m dreaming of becoming a video game creator and I don’t want any bad ideas for a video game if I accomplish my goal.

     I pledge to be Drug-Free because I want to have a solid heart and help others on my way to growing up and I want to keep others and I safe so everyone can have a good future and we can all reach our goal, and I say if anybody wants to take drugs change your mind and CTR which means Choose The Right and  follow god and what he says and we all want to stay healthy and never stop realizing their goal and for people who do drugs they don’t ever realize what they lost like their career, their friends, maybe even their families and we don’t want that to happen anymore and there’s always a life lesson every day of your life, and I’ve studied presidents for a while and a saying that John F. Kennedy used was…

     Ask not what your country can do for you ask what you can do for your country…

-John F. Kennedy

     And by that we need to help our country and what that can also do about being drug-free is to help your country be drug-free instead of helping only yourself but to help others, and you don’t have to be selfish and look after only yourself.

From,

Myself

Thomas Mattei

Then on Saturday morning, Thomas earned his Black Belt in Tae Kwon Do!  We are very proud of Thomas for all of his accomplishments!