Dr. Wall spoke at East Grand Rapids High School in February 2009. Enjoy their local news coverage of the event below:
Bakersfield Business News
The following
video ran on Bakersfield Business News with Gaylen Young following Dr.
Wall's speaking engagement at Modern Office Environments in Bakersfield
on Jan. 27.
KGET
The following video and story ran on www.KGET.com, Jan. 20, 2009.
Dr. Chuck Wall is still changing the world through random acts of kindness.
As
the nation inaugurates a new president at what he calls a time of
change, we thought this would be the perfect time to reintroduce you to
a local man who spent most of his life without sight, but is
responsible for sending a global vision of kindness around the world.
Just last Friday Dr. Chuck Wall was still out delivering his message: Random acts of kindness have a ripple effect.
Administrators
and faculty at Taft College started their semester with his lesson ... you can change the world with one random act of kindness.
Chuck
Wall grew up in Bakersfield. All his life he was told it was mental
problems that inhibited his own learning and progress. He was treated
as if he was mentally retarded. But at 19, his world changed
dramatically when a doctor diagnosed him with retinitis pigmentosa.
Wall says, "The doctor said, 'You are going to go blind because of this
retinitis pigmentosa,' and I went home. I was pretty excited. I told my
folks, 'Wow, I'm going blind, I'm not mentally retarded.' I started
life all over again.''
With the help of audio cassettes and Braille, Chuck went on to receive two masters degrees and a Ph.D.
His
amazing life story includes serving as a member of President Nixon's
administration, writing speeches and drafting discrimination laws that
are still implemented today.
He cherishes his time as a page
for a television station in Sacramento where in 1965 he met with one of
the greatest men of our time and has a souvenir to prove it. It's a
makeup compact that Dr. Martin Luther King used when he came to KCRA to
tape Meet the Press.
At the time, Wall would never know how he would help change the world in his own way.
After
breakfast one morning Wall overheard a radio announcer say, 'There is
another random act of violence.' Wall thought, "With every negative,
there is something positive. If I pull out the word 'violence' and
stick in the word 'kindness,' I'll take a negative and turn into a
positive lesson for my students."
The Bakersfield Californian wrote a story that was picked up by the Associated Press and it was all uphill from there.
Wall
said, "That's where it really went crazy because a reporter called me
and said, 'You may want to get ready, because the editors in New York
have decided to take your story and send it to every television
station, radio station and newspaper around the world."
Wall appeared on 250 television and radio shows around the world including Oprah.
There
was even a movie, called Pay it Forward, based on the same premise. He
carried the Olympic torch for the Summer Olympics and today his message
continues to be carried on in businesses and local high schools where Kindness clubs have been established as a legacy to him.
Retired
now,
Wall continues to challenge himself today, finding great pride in
the award winning pottery and bird houses that he builds through
touch... content in knowing that this Bakersfield kid is touching lives
every day.
