Clara Hughes
Winter sport? Summer sport? Clara Hughes is an athlete for all seasons. She’s one of the biggest stories to emerge in Canadian sports, and she’s not finished yet. A six-time Olympic medalist in cycling and speed skating; she’s the only athlete in history to win multiple medals in both Summer and Winter Games. For Clara, success means more than earning medals. It means having a voice and using the opportunity to reach out and help others. After winning gold in 2006, Clara donated $10,000 of her personal savings to the Right to Play programs. This donation challenged Canadians to support the cause, raising over half a million dollars for the international humanitarian organization that uses sport for development. In 2010, she donated her $10,000 medal bonus to the Vancouver inner city school program, ‘Take a Hike’, which uses adventure based learning to give youth at risk a better direction in life. She is the National Spokesperson for Bell Canada’s Mental Health initiative and the ‘Let’s Talk’ campaign. By sharing past struggles with depression, Clara has helped break down the stigma associated with mental illness. I have suffered mental illness for most of my life. Now I have someone to look up to, someone who is brave enough to speak out loud about it, someone who makes me feel like there is hope for me. She didn't have to speak out about her mental illness, but she did. I am inspired to be as brave as she was, inspired to try and achieve great things like she has, and no longer feel embarrassed about my illness. Clara Hughes has done all this for people like me, and that makes her a hero. MY hero. My BIGGEST hero ever.
Submitted by Anonymous
