Casey's take on Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory coming soon!!
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Hello and welcome to the 2018 year in review special! I'm Casey Rohrer, your host, and you better wish me luck because this year, we did so many great things, it will be very hard to do! Now, without further adieu, lets get on with our year in review! 12. Moving out of Tiny House and back into VIP remodeled house 11. Speaking at the Stem Cell research center 10. Speaking at Grand View Elementary 9. Speaking at UCLA 8. Queen Mary ghost tour 7. Paradise Pier Disneyland stay 6. Watching Aladdin at Pantages 5. Performing in the Lion King musical 4. Speaking at Beverly Hills High School 3. San Francisco Microsoft speaking trip 2. Hawaii solo trip with my staff 1. Disney Cruise Stay tuned for our best season yet. 2019 is coming up! Could meeting Hugh Jackman be on Casey's Christmas Wish List??
Brian & Casey
I got involved with Friendship Foundation after working with them through Anchorless Production on The Lion King KIDS musical. Since then I've become really interested in the foundation and thanks to them I've been able to meet great people. My high school has a Friendship Club where kids can go and hang out with kids in the special education classes every Tuesday and Thursday. Just being able to hang out with these kids is an amazing experience. What I love about the Friendship Foundation is that they provide an environment where everyone is just one big family. Who is Casey? Wow that's easy, he is amazing, funny, and nice. He just happens to also be a paraplegic but I know that if I were to introduce him, he would love for me to say, Casey is a star and there is no doubt. I met Casey through my drama class in my freshman year and I still can’t forget the first day he came to the class because he was so happy. Being able to be with Casey is a gift within itself since my older brother also had some health problems. He had lupus when he was young and then was diagnosed with cancer so, by the time he was 18 my brother couldn’t speak or move but he was always able to smile, laugh and say yes or no with his head. My brother passed away when he was 27 and I was about 13. My friendship with Casey brings back good memories and in a way I feel more comfortable hanging with him. I consider Casey to be one of my best friends and I think Casey hopefully feels the same way. If you ask Casey he will tell you I am his “master puppeteer”. So in other words, Casey translates to happy memories. - Brian Casey will be speaking in front of 750 kids (and their parents) on Monday, June 11, 2018 at Grandview Elementary in Manhattan Beach. Below is the speech he wrote with the theme of courage. Hello Gators! My name is Casey Rohrer and I’m a 10th grader at Mira Costa High School. Thank you for having me today to teach you about what it is like living with a disability, and most importantly courage.
I have to tell you I was very excited to come and speak to you today. I loved elementary school. I think people have a lot to learn from one another. Today I am here to teach you about my disability, cerebral palsy. Does anyone know what cerebral palsy is? Cerebral means your “brain’s cerebrum”. Can you all find and touch where your brain is? Good Job. The “cerebrum” is the part of the brain that controls your motor movement. Can you wiggle your arms? Good your cerebrum is working. Now wiggle your legs. Good Job. Your “cerebrum” is helping you move your legs. Now freeze, don’t move! “Palsy” describes the paralysis of movement in your body parts. Meaning you can’t move. All of you are able to control your body and its movements. A person, like me, with cerebral palsy is not able to do that. Cerebral palsy is a disorder that affects a person’s ability to move their own body, and for some of us, even speak. It is a condition that has not allowed me to ever talk or walk, but it doesn’t define me and has never ever stopped me from chasing my dreams and achieving greatness. It has not been easy living with a disability. What is hard about living with cerebral palsy? You could spend several days a week at a hospital, instead of being here at school. And who likes the hospital? Not any of us. I think I have had over 100 visits in my lifetime for medical procedures and surgeries. Not fun when I just wanted to be a kid like you. It is important for all of you to be strong and to stick up for yourselves, along with having strong and active advocates, like your parents. Living with cerebral palsy has been hard. I could not fit on the playground equipment or play at the park with my friends. Can you imagine not being able to play at recess with your friends? Have any of you been to South Park Playground in Hermosa Beach? Thanks to my amazing mom, she worked hard to get that playground built so I could enjoy the playground with my friends and play on that specially designed equipment. If you put your mind to it, anything is possible, you all can make your dreams come true. My mom and I worked together to help mine come true by having the park built. There are a lot of reasons that make living with a disability ok too. If you look on the bright side, I get to use special entrances and exits all over town. I am also able to teach people about patience, acceptance, and that disabilities don’t make you who you are, YOU make you who you are. I am a big brother, a son, a friend, a tenth grader, a director, a producer, an actor, and a comedian. You see my life is all about directing big play productions, taking wild family adventures, and kicking it with my friends. Thanks to this amazing computer device I have, I am able to speak. This amazing device is called Tobii and it is an eye gaze reader, which means that it reads where my eyes are looking at the screen. I am able to type out everything I want to say and speak just by looking at my screen. It is my communication hero. I got this Tobii when I was in second grade, the same age as some of you here. Before I got this communication device, it was so frustrating for me. I couldn’t speak and express myself and my parents had to play 20 questions with me, asking “yes” “no” questions for me to respond, using only eye movements. This was so frustrating! Can you imagine not being able to talk? I couldn’t express myself in class or to my friends at school. I hoped that one day I would have a voice. Raise your hand if you have you ever seen the movie the Wizard of Oz? Do you remember the Cowardly Lion? The lion thought he needed to search for courage. When I did not have a voice, I needed to find courage like the lion in the movie. But let’s remember what the wizard of oz told the lion, I can’t give it to you, you already have it, within you. As hard as life was without a voice for me, I had to be courageous and know that one day I would have a voice so my friends could hear and understand me. So my advice to you: remember, you all have courage within you. You can do anything. Thank you for listening to me today. I am glad I was able to come and hopefully teach you a thing or two about living with a disability. Remember to always have hope and to be courageous because having courage means you can do anything. |