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Pay it Forward: Local teen helping to spread life-saving message
AHS junior Drew Barry poses with some of the donated lacrosse jerseys he received to help youth in Swaziland. / Photo courtesy of Missy Barry
By J. David Barron, dbarron@starlocalnews.com
There are many ways to save a life, but they all start by caring.
That's not something Drew Barry is lacking.
Combining his passion for caring with his ardor for lacrosse, Barry was able to recently address a lack halfway across the world. The Allen High School junior honor student was introduced to the need through a family friend, who knew a friend. Now, Barry has friends he never imagined - or has yet to meet.
"This had his name written all over it," Watts began. "When I saw the appeal from Ryan I knew they were both lacrosse players and that Drew would love to help the people in Swaziland, because Swaziland has the highest AIDS population in the world, percentage-wise.
"I knew that [Drew] was a young, caring, involved-in-the-world citizen."
Watts drew on her tenure as a teacher to be sure of the character she knew would be required to see such a project through to its successful completion.
"Even though I knew him, I was still amazed at his enthusiasm," she said. "His caring for humanity and his involvement for his community makes him a leading citizen and future leader."
So what Barry, an attacker on the Eagles' lacrosse team, did was first inquire of Hall if lacrosse jerseys, known as pinnies, would work instead. A lacrosse pinny is a reversible jersey. The answer was a resounding "Yes!"
And now the Halls have about 150 pinnies to share.
"When Mrs. Watts first contacted me through an email, I talked it over with my parents and figured it would be a fun and interesting thing to do," Barry recalled. "Also it would help with my Congressional Award.
"It [Congressional Award] was something my lieutenant in the Sea Cadets thought I would like to do because it helps me achieve goals and become a better, well-rounded citizen, and it looks good on college resumes," said Barry, who is looking primarily at northeastern business schools able to combine his love for lacrosse with a keen interest in economics.
"Ryan is also a former lacrosse player in Texas," Barry continued. "They asked me to pick up pinnies while they were [in Africa] in order to help with games there, so I contacted my teammates and former teammates to help donate used lacrosse pinnies, which they used to help spread the message about AIDS and to help with their poverty there, which is really bad. They can't afford to buy things like jerseys.
"The kids want to have fun instead of being lectured, and after the games they are more open to hear the message because they've been able to play," he explained. "And I helped be a source to get the jerseys so they could play the games and spread awareness."
It all sounds so simple. Yet Barry's education in the matter also featured an introduction to logistics.
"I found out that the cost to ship two big boxes was about $400, and I couldn't pay that myself. So me and my parents and their co-workers had a fundraiser and we ended up getting enough money to ship it all off," related Barry, who divulged most of the money came from his parents' co-workers and church organizations.
Barry said the project satisfied his primary goal of helping on as big of a scale as possible, but that he would know more specifically just how much he was able to assist following the tournament at the end of November. His parents say Barry's penchant for wanting to be part of the solution is the product of a lot of people investing in their son.
"It certainly takes a village," his mom, Missy Barry, said with a laugh. "So he's had a great support system around him that's shown him there is more out there than just ourselves. So he's been able to learn the 'Pay it Forward' mentality.
"It makes us confident that when he's no longer under our roof that he'll be able to go on to continue to make the right decisions and continue to help other people."
Helping other people is something Barry will likely never stop caring about.
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