foreign [Music] good afternoon everyone I'd like you to close your eyes and I want you to think about the worst thing that you've ever said the worst thing that you've ever done and the worst thing that has ever happened to you and I want you to imagine that there's no escape from that that moment is Frozen in Time forever and you will be judged by that worst thing you ever said the worst thing that you've ever done and the worst thing that has ever happened to you now if you open your eyes you'll see that thank God that's not the actual world that we live in there is movement forward from that worse moment there is an escape there is contrition there is atonement and there is redemption I want you to think about your own Redemption stories as I tell the stories of two men Ralph and John and these two men were very good friends for decades they were business associates and they each had something devastating happen to them and in each case as you will see as I tell these stories they transformed not only themselves through Redemption but they were able to transform the communities in which they live so let's begin with Ralph's story Ralph was a highly successful businessman he was a captain of industry at one point in time Ralph's companies employed more than 14 000 people across the United States he was born and raised in Providence 14 000 people remarkable and Ralph was popular he was financially successful he had a great reputation everyone wanted a piece of Ralph they wanted him as a client and a customer and a friend and a business colleague and they wanted them on their boards because Ralph was successful and one day in May of 2007 Ralph was in a board meeting in that board meeting became fiery controversial heated tempers flared it became personal and during the course of that meeting in a moment of anger and frustration Ralph used a racial slur now we could try to give context to it or explain how or why it might have happened but that's an excuse and there is no excuse for using that racial slur Ralph apologized immediately and it was a sincere apology he was contrite he was sorry about it and the board members accepted his apology but later that day some members of the board contacted the media and they told the media about what Ralph had said even though they said they had accepted his apology and the next day on the front page of the paper was a picture of Ralph and a story about what he had said and he was on all the news stations all the radio talk shows and all of those media Outlets characterized Ralph as a bigot and a racist in that One Moment In Time and everyone who had wanted to be close to Ralph everyone who wanted Ralph in their corner abandoned him he was a pariah he was an outcast even people who knew him well may believe I don't know Ralph because of that One Moment In Time and Ralph went to his friend John who was also at that board meeting and he said John what am I going to do I built my reputation over decades it was a great reputation it's ruined it's ruined now what am I going to do and his friend John said to him Ralph there's a difference between character and reputation character is who you are and if you haven't changed who you are if you are the same person that you were before that awful Moment In Time then you can rebuild your reputation if your character has changed well that's a problem but if you are the same person we can work together to rebuild your reputation and that's what they set out to do Ralph and his friend John and Ralph's wife Barbara decided that they would do everything that they could not by words but by Deeds to rebuild Ralph's reputation and they started out quietly and softly under the radar they didn't ask for publicity they didn't buy ads on television or the newspaper about what they were doing but what they did was they went into the third grade of a core City School and they said to the teacher what is the biggest problem you have and the teacher said summer reading loss our children don't read over the summer and when they come back into school in September they're three months behind and they never catch up and so what Ralph and Barbara decided to do was to put together a program to combat summer reading laws and what they did was they purchased six books per child age appropriate and they said to the children if you read these books over the summer and you come back in September it prove to your teachers you've read these books then not only will you have the enjoyment from reading the books and for many of these students it was the first time they ever owned a book of Their Own you come back you prove you read the books we'll give you each a thousand dollar scholarship for college and when they came back in September it was an amazing success those kids read the books they loved the books they loved the reading they did better in school and they each got a thousand dollars and what did the kids say can we do it again and so what started as a small program in one grade third grade in one school over the course of time spread to many schools in many grades in our state and Ralph and Barbara donated millions of dollars millions of dollars to combat summer reading laws and millions of dollars in scholarships and those children the ones that were in the third grade a few years ago graduated high school and went into college great colleges across our country and many of them have now graduated from graduate school amazing careers wonderful stories and when they were interviewed about that early program they said that program changed our lives transformed Our Lives we not only learned to read we loved to read it expanded our Horizons it gave us the courage to do things we never thought we could do by learning and reading and now they're amazing success stories now Ralph and Barbara saw that transformation and they said if we can do this in those schools imagine what we can do in the communities of color in our state and that was their dream to transform the communities of color in our state now unfortunately Ralph became very ill very ill and Ralph knew he was going to die but Ralph wanted that Legacy to continue he wanted more than what had just been accomplished and so he and John and Barbara decided that after Ralph passed they would form a new foundation and it would do just that to transform lives in our state and at the end when Ralph was very ill he talked to John again and he said John my character has stayed the same but where is my reputation today and John said just look at the children look at the children the hundreds and hundreds of children that you have helped look at their families look at what you have done in the community the community has embraced you again you have your reputation again Ralph and Ralph said I also want to thank you and Barbara because you know the biblical saying that it's easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than it is for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven and he said I have been a very rich man but together you have shown me how to use my money for good and maybe now I can squeeze through that gate and John said the prayers of the community the love of the community the way the community respects you Ralph they will push those gates open for you and you will be welcomed and after Ralph passed Barbara did exactly what they had planned and she formed the New Foundation to transform the lives of the communities of color in our state and today that Foundation has given more than 63 million dollars in education grants Health Care Grants criminal justice Civil Justice entrepreneurship technology training on and on and on more than 250 organizations have been funded by that Foundation now is that a success story that's an amazing success story in my view every time one of those donations is made you can view it as an act of contrition or as I do as an act of redemption an act of redemption and Barbara and Ralph proved Beyond A Reasonable Doubt that there is such a thing as Redemption Ralph and Barbara now let's go to John's story John was the friend who talked about the difference between character and reputation well years later John had his own devastating moment very different than Ralph's but devastating and John's wife of almost 45 years her name was Pat out of the blue one day she started to experience pain in her hip and she went to the doctor and she was diagnosed with stage four pancreatic cancer there is a zero survival rate for stage four pancreatic cancer zero it's a death sentence nothing can be done and when Pat and John met with her oncologist a wonderful man skillful knowledgeable compassionate and he gave them that diagnosis he asked do you want a prognosis do you want to know how long you have to live and Pat immediately said no I do not want to be cabined I don't want to be cabined by a thought of how much time I may have to live only God knows that and whether he gives me a day a week a month a year however long he gives what's the important thing is that I choose to live my life every day with Grace and to do good and to help others and to help my family cancer isn't going to Define me I'm going to continue to lead the life I had for as long as God gives me and she went about doing it in a remarkable way again it shows how these lives are intersected Ralph and Barbara's Foundation well Pat became an ambassador for that Foundation while she was undergoing chemo so when she was in an oncologist's office a radiologist's office a surgeon's office or undergoing infusion whenever she saw a health care worker of color she recruited that person to come into the foundation to take advantage of the training programs and the scholarships and Pat was and to this day still is the greatest recruiter that that Foundation has ever seen remarkable while she was undergoing cancer treatment for a disease she knew was going to kill her now John on the other hand he didn't do as well he wasn't as strong and as courageous as his wife he struggled he was afraid of the cancer he was afraid of the effect that it was having on himself and his wife and his family he was afraid but he did everything that he could to honor his wife and people would come to John and they would say John your wife is a saint and he said I view her as a different Heavenly figure I view her as an archangel Warrior kind with the Blazing Sword in her fight against pancreatic cancer she fought every day of her life but stage four pancreatic cancer as I said is a death sentence there's no escape from it but John and Pat together decided that they would not let her death be a dividing line she would pass to a better place but the fight against pancreatic cancer here in our state that fight had to continue and as Pat passed she passed that sword to John so that he would continue the fight every day and they came together as a couple and they said what we're going to do is we're going to take the life insurance policies on Pat's life which were very substantial and we're going to donate the proceeds of those to cancer research we're also going to take the home the beautiful home that we have lived in for the last 33 years and we're going to donate the proceeds of that home to cancer research and that's a lot that's good that's great but it's still not going to be enough and they decided that when Pat passed John would also form a foundation and his foundation would work with Ralph and Barbara's Foundation together again an intersection of lives and they would work together to transform Cancer Care in our state to make Rhode Island first class they recruited top Physicians from around the country to come here and lead a new cancer lab together Barbara's foundation and John's Foundation worked with the doctors here to form what is called the future generation of cancer research recruiting young students in high school today of color who are brilliant to become oncologists and cancer researchers and hematologists and to stay in our state when they do so and transform our state so that patients in our state will see doctors who look like them who know their cultures and they will not appear to be foreign to them and millions of dollars have been donated to do just that now is that a success story well if you look at John today he used to have a big beautiful home and now he lives in a small apartment he had a wife of 45 years whom he loved now he lives alone but John is no longer afraid of cancer he knows the battle can be won he knows it that sword it's not only taken up by John it's taken up by everybody in the community fighting together fighting that demon together now one day one day there will be a cure and John prays every day that he's alive when that happens so with whatever strength he has left when that day happens he can Shout at the top of his lungs pancreatic cancer Pat has beaten you not for herself but for the community for everyone now I can tell you these stories of John and Ralph because I lived them I'm John and that's my wife so I want to leave you with this the motto of our state is Hope and that's a motto and it's a slogan but it's much much more than that because Redemption and hope are real they're real things every one of you has a Redemption story or will have one believe in them because if you believe then hope always finds a way always thank you