Questions from Westchester Jewish Center:

1. How did Byron hear about the PEARLS project?
2. Are there limitations in the activities you do?
3. How can you be alive with only half a brain?
4. Do you get bullied by other kids

Answers from Byron:

Hey everyone at WJC

1. I forget exactly how I heard about the Pearls Project. I remember my mom telling me that Rick was starting something called Pearls Project and she wondered if I wanted to be a part of it and I said sure.
2. I do have limitation to activities that I can do. For example, I love playing soccer, and basketball, but I can’t play on my schools team because its too physical what I do instead is help manage teams. I do that because even though I can’t play on the team I am on the team by managing it.
3.  That is a good question how do I live with half a brain. Honestly I have no clue how I am living. Its great though because I don’t see myself as  I’m that kid with half a brain. I have figured out many things that most people do with two hands I’ve figured out how to do it with one hand.
4. When I was younger I was bullied all the time. It was the worst when I was in 4th grade. I had just moved to a new school. I tried very hard to make new friends, but the kids there saw my brace on my leg. They thought it would be fun to draw me closer by yelling my name to come over and hangout with them. They knew at the time I couldn’t run very fast. As I ran as fast as I could they would run away. They called it run from the cripple which at the time they all thought it was a great game to have me run as fast as I could to catch up to them. Because of this I went to the principal where we all sat down and talked about it, but it didn’t get better it got even worse. It got so bad with these kids that the second half of the year I pretended to be sick all the time and I hated going to school because I didn’t want to deal with those kids anymore. At the end of the school year I never went back. Even to this day I have never gone back because I have horrible memories there. Its also kind of hard to go back there now because its on the other side of the country in California.