A moving speech from an inspiring individual.

On April 27, Travis Freeman traveled to Bullitt East High School to give the speech of a lifetime. Freeman has been blind since his adolescent years. Project Unify was excited to set this event up, and students were moved by the things Freeman had to say.

This week at Bullitt East is Disability Awareness Week. This event takes place at around the same time each school year, and helps to educate students on different disabilities.

The disabilities chosen for this week were dyslexia with grey, red for brain aneurysms, blue or yellow for down syndrome, white for blindness, and purple on Friday for epilepsy.

Bullitt East has organized speakers before for this week, but not for the past couple of years. With Project Unify collaborating more than ever, they decided to end Disability Awareness Week with a bang.

College Professor Freeman has been blind since he was little. According to his speech, he woke up one day with a pounding migraine, and it didn’t go away for the next nine days. His family finally took him to a doctor, and he found out that he had Cavernous Sinus Thrombosis, an extremely rare sinus infection. It causes a blood clot to form in the brain, and can cause death in up to 30 percent of cases.

Freeman wasn’t a part of that 30 percent, however. In an attempt to save his life, doctors performed surgery for over six hours, and in consequence he became totally blind.

“I want you to close your eyes for a second,” said Freeman during one part of his 15-minute speech. He then asked the audience to imagine this as your entire life.

“It really gave you a sense of the reality of blindness for him,” said sophomore Abi Huffman.

After telling his story, Freeman went on to talk about the amazing work with his disability he has done in his life. After going blind, he grew up to create The Freeman Foundation. On their official website, their mission writes as “existing to promote awareness and understanding of the needs as well as the potential of individuals with disabilities, particularly within religious settings but also to the public at large.”

Freeman has also had a movie made about him, and he’s been featured on national media like Today and Dateline. “You wouldn’t expect someone to want to make a movie about you,” said Freeman.

Both Freeman and students were happy about how the week and the speech went. “I always like getting out, especially when I can do full school assemblies like this,” said Freeman.

Sophomore Lauren Jones thoroughly enjoyed his message. “He opened my eyes to really be thankful for all the things we take advantage of in life,” said Jones.

Senior Sydney Rames, a member of Project Unify since this year, was super happy about the crowd. “As a school, I know we are and can learn to be loving and show support to our students with disabilities,” said Rames.

Rames explained that Project Unify reached out to him and asked him to give his speech, since the club is so heavily involved here. Project Unify is excited to successfully continue such an exciting event in the future.