David Flood, a board member of Kids Plus and a hospice volunteer, recently came in to talk to the freshmen and sophomore class.

Flood opened his speech by speaking in Tagalog, a Filipino language, which he learned after marrying a Filipino woman. He has two children, a son who is 18 and a daughter who is 15. Flood was describing his children when he revealed that his son has autism.

He then went on to tell anecdotes about both his daughter and his son, such as the time his son scored his first hockey goal, courtesy of the players on the other team willing to let him score. He also told the story about how his son was asked to go to prom.

Flood then gave everyone in the audience a total of three challenges. Challenge number one was to stop looking on the outside and look on the inside. Challenge number two was to go to two adults in the school and thank them for keeping us safe. Challenge number three was to never let anyone eat alone. He stressed this aspect especially because including somebody in something as simple as lunch could make them feel less lonely. He said, “I don’t think we have an addiction problem in this country. I think we have a loneliness problem in this country. Loneliness is toxic.”

Flood’s number one tip to all of the students was “Don’t think less of yourself, think of yourself less.”

Many students raved about his speech, especially sophomore Ekaterina Zelenin who said, “He managed to talk about things that are cheesy without being cheesy.” However, there were quite a few outliers who were disruptive in the beginning. “It bothered me how many people in that room weren’t listening and didn’t take anything from it” said Katherine Wittlinge