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(pensive music)
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(crickets chirp) (fire crackles)
- The first day I came here,
there was like questions about
like how confident you are about your stutter.
And I put not at all.
- My dad would get upset.
And one time I had started crying and yelled at him,
something like, you don't know what it's like to be me.
You don't understand what it's like
to be scared of speaking in class
and to everyone around you.
And he just looked at me and he's like,
"No, I don't, I'm sorry."
- Here is the only place where I can actually be myself.
And I know like that sounds corny,
but that's just because it's really true.
Taro, you have made a truly amazing place.
And it's really helped me through
really tough times where I felt alone.
(thoughtful music)
- I moved here in June, 1991.
And I remember looking around at everyone in the park
and kind of just watching everybody talk.
It just struck me how easy it seemed
for people's mouths to move.
I remember just being this 19-year-old kid
and just wanting that, wanting that ease of speech.
My number one goal in life when I was 19
and for many years before and after that
was to not let anybody see me stutter.
- What do Winston Churchill, Marilyn Monroe,
Samuel L. Jackson and Bruce Willis all have in common?
Anybody know?
- [Audience] Stuttering.
- That's right, you are a smart audience.
They are all stutters.
In fact, this debilitating speech disorder
affects more than 3 million people in this country.
Many of whom suffer in silence.
- [News Anchor] Experts define stuttering,
also called stammering as an involuntary disruption
of the rhythm and flow of speech.
The person knows where he or she wants to say,
but just can't produce the words fluently.
- And while many who stutter
try to stay out of the spotlight.
One theater company in New York
is putting a group of stuttering teens on center stage
and giving them the confidence to speak freely.
- Their...
pieces can be a play, a poem, a song.
- Nobody needs the white crayon, I'm useless.
(audience laughs)
- Whatever they want to create.
- [News Anchor] The group also has a sense of humor
noting on its programs that the performance
will be anywhere from two to 10 hours,
depending on the actor's fluency.
- When I say our time, you say 'bout time.
Our time. - 'Bout time.
- [Taro] When I first had the idea to start Say,
Everett was the first person in the world
that I shared this idea with.
I think when a lot of kids grow up stuttering,
you feel isolated and you feel uncool.
And to me, Everett's like the coolest person I know.
And so to have somebody with that energy and that positivity
around these kids, you're saying to them, you're important,
and what you have to say matters.
- This is a big year at Say,
we have lots of seniors graduating high school
and the Say program.
- [Taro] Most of the kids and teens in Say,
don't want to be actors or performers at all.
That's not the point.
Creating something and then presenting it
in whatever form, that's a scary thing.
Okay, you ready? - Yeah.
- All right, here we go,
from the end of Juliana speech, please.
- Thank you
so much for
listening.
(applause)
- She was never enthused about going to school
because she was afraid to talk.
She couldn't be herself at school.
She would tell me stories about
when it was her turn to read in class,
how the kids wouldn't have any patience.
And they would even say, oh my God,
she's gonna take so long.
- It
wasn't just kids.
It was also teachers.
I think I was in second or third grade.
I was asked to read aloud from like a book, I stuttered,
and my teacher was just mocking me
and like saying, oh, you can do it.
Come on, you can do it, you can read.
I feel like my stuttering almost
deemed me as like unintelligent
or something in school, I don't know.
I just thought, you know,
I'll always be treated like this because I'm the only one
in the world who has to deal with this.
So I'm always going to be treated like this,
and I just kind of accepted it.
And that sounds really bad,
but that's kind of how it was at the time.
- And I didn't know how depressed she was until last year.
- I had like, thoughts of pretty bad things.
Like, I didn't want to be here.
I didn't want to deal with anything anymore.
- It's been hard between Juliana and I, you know,
because I wasn't raised by my father.
So it got hard for me
to be there for her when it comes to bullying.
- I was so withdrawn.
I would just internalize everything.
So I would have to let it out somehow.
And I would sing all the time.
- You're gonna laugh at me, look how I tapped it,
I taped it with the camera this way,
so now I have to turn the whole thing over, can that work?
That's awful, can you see it?
♪ Everybody's been there ♪
♪ Everybody's been stared down by the enemy ♪
- When she sings that's her way of soothing herself.
I don't know, it just makes her happy.
It's like, she's letting out.
I can't explain it, it's like comforting to her.
♪ Never gonna shut you out ♪
♪ Everywhere I'm looking out ♪
♪ I'm surrounded by your embrace ♪
♪ Baby I can see your halo ♪
♪ You know you're my saving grace ♪
- It lets me forget about anything
that makes me upset, sad, hurt, anxious, anything.
♪ Halo feel your halo ♪
♪ Halo ♪
- I love that little smile she puts it the end there.
- When I started Say we would travel a lot.
It is a true pleasure to be here.
The feedback was always from both the parents and the kids.
Is there something like this near me?
So after years of hearing that and thinking,
how can we help more kids?
I thought a great first step for that
would be to create a hub where kids who stutter
from all around the country and the world can come.
And so that's where the idea for a summer camp came.
- How are you?
- I'm good. - Awesome!
Just look around you guys, look around to your right.
You can see some of the camp, enjoy camp you guys!
(pleasant music)
- I think the first time I noticed him stuttering
was when he was four
and afterwards he had something
traumatic happen in his life.
I was going to work,
and I was dropping him off at school.
I was just about to get into my car
when his father pulled up.
He started shooting and shooting
and I can just plainly see that gun.
And I don't even think that he noticed
that Malcolm was in the car.
I got shot right here in my arm
and a little glaze on my chest,
but he saw his dad shoot himself.
I did not see that part.
After it was all over with
Malcolm kept asking me questions about why did it happen?
And I couldn't give him an answer.
I think he internalized everything.
He thought it was his fault that that happened.
- If you look here, I got retired uniforms.
- [Interviewer] And what led you to retire them?
- Because I'm gonna be a famous baseball player.
- He was closing down, saying that he didn't like who he was
because when he'd go to school, people would tease him.
And especially when he had to get up in front of the class
and do presentations, he hated that the most.
- Last year we won the championship against Milne.
- And once the teacher said,
we're gonna have to do something about this stuttering,
like she was saying, it's his fault that he was a stutterer.
- I'll show you how far I can hit.
- He told me he felt embarrassed
because she said that in front of the class.
- Ah, it's a ground ball.
- It's just recently last year
that he got help at a hospital.
- [Malcolm] There we go.
- His stuttering was just becoming worse
and the kids were being more aggressive
with their teasing and bullying
because of the way he talked.
- To read what these kids in his school have done to him,
kicked, smacked, tripped.
And then just the way he lists all the places,
lunch line, hallway, classroom,
and then even in the van that brings him home.
I mean, it's just, it breaks my heart, man.
- And a lot of people don't intend to be hurtful.
I mean, there are many people who are just assholes,
but most of the time,
I think people just don't know what stuttering is.
- Hello. (Sarah shouts)
- She always loved being around people,
reacting and playing, goofing around.
- She's always been very sensitive,
always needed a little extra love and kisses and hugs,
but that's not bad.
(Sarah laughs) Happy kid.
What does a cow say? - Moo.
- What does a horse say? - Neigh.
- What does a pig say? (Sarah snuffles)
- I can remember the first time that
I picked up on Sarah's stuttering.
And you were asking me if I wanted to go and play,
and you get stuck on the word, do,
do-do-do-do you want to play?
- I went to swimming lessons.
- [Sarah's Dad] You had swimming lessons?
- And then, and then, and then.
- [Sarah's Dad] And then what?
And I could see that it was just so hard for you
to get the words out right then.
And probably within a week or two,
you know, we're at the pediatrician,
just asking him for a little advice.
♪ Supercalifragilisticexpialidocis ♪
♪ Even though the sound of it is something quite atrocious ♪
♪ If you say it loud enough you'll always sound precocious ♪
♪ Supercalifragilisticexpialidocis ♪
- For a long time, she would come home from school
and she would just kind of shut down,
and it would be quiet in the house.
And Paul and I would say,
don't you wanna call so-and-so to go out?
Don't you wanna go out with a friend?
Don't you wanna do something?
And finally, one day she said to us,
"I am so tired all day of talking.
"It is exhausting."
"I have to think where my tongue goes,"
"I have to think how my breath is."
- [Sarah's Dad] Sarah.
- "Have to concentrate on people's eyes for eye contact.
"By the end of the day, by the end of the school day,"
"I can't, I just can't anymore."
- [Sarah's Dad] And there you are baby.
Sarah was born early, she's five and a half weeks early.
And could that have caused some of this?
I mean, I was strict with my diet.
I was doing all the right things,
but there's always in the back of your head,
what could I have done differently?
Watching your child hurt,
that's the hardest part of being a parent.
- I such a hard time making friends.
People don't know like what's going on,
are you nervous, is there something not right?
I have a lot of good friends back at home,
but I don't have like that one best friend
that like gets me and Sarah is that.
- [Emily's Mom] You know, we should
look at these more often.
- [Emily] I like this one.
- Yup, that was at the Oregon beach.
As far back as I can remember,
it's always been Caroline, Em, and me.
And that's important to me,
you know that they know that I'm there.
And I know that they would be there for me too.
- When we were younger, we had problems with our dad.
For Emily, Emily was, you were terrified.
- I remember times when I would like hide.
It was not the best time.
- My goal is to empower both of them, how amazing they are.
With Emily she needs to hear that.
And I try to do that almost on a daily basis.
I remember in fifth grade, we talked about affirmations
and Emily, we put up affirmations all over the house,
and Emily put them up all over in her room.
Wait 'til you see her room, it's amazing.
Affirmations are just saying things,
positive things that you love about yourself,
whether you love them or not.
Like in fifth grade, I started to do affirmations
and put them on sticky notes on my wall and say things like,
I love my stutter, but at the time, like I hated my stutter,
but the whole point is to say something
until it becomes true.
- She always was smiling, but she wasn't talking.
And people that knew her would say, Emily doesn't stutter.
Nobody knew she stuttered because she'd never talk.
- This poem is called Honest Speech and it's by Erin Schick.
And she is a local poet who stutters.
And it's just another voice saying when I stutter,
I am speaking my own language fluently,
like this is what I sound like,
and I have no shame about it.
"For too long I have been afraid of my own name."
"The word invented only to describe me."
"I have let it sit heavy in my throat, a tool of betrayal."
And that is like a really powerful line.
And like, that's how I used to feel about it.
Literally, I was afraid of my own name.
I didn't wanna say my own name.
"My mouth spit shines syllables till they sparkle.
"So my voice is the only one like it.
"This is not a speech impediment.
"My voice is an instrument,"
"my stutter it's greatest symphony,"
"my speech composed by God."
So good.
Ah, I get chills when I say it.
- For those of you that have been here before
welcome back, welcome home.
For those of you, this is your first day at camp Say
we open our hearts to you, we open our arms to you
and we thank you so much for coming here.
I have stuttered since I was five years old,
I didn't meet anyone else who stutters
until I was 26 years old.
It's a really long time to grow up
feeling like I was the only one that had this challenge.
It's a really long time to grow up feeling alone.
And when I was a kid, all I wanted was this.
I wanted to be around other people
who know what it felt like to talk the way that I did.
I wanted to be around other people
who knew how frustrating it is
to have someone else interrupt them
or finish their sentence for them or give them that look.
That look of why do you talk that way?
I think the way you sound is beautiful,
right now, just the way you are.
We all come from very different places.
None of us speak exactly the same, none of us walk the same.
None of us dress the same,
but we are all human beings that wanna be heard.
And that means letting everyone have
as much time as they need to speak.
A lot of these kids have these hard shells up.
You know, it's like a turtle.
You have to put up your shell,
put up your box to survive in this world
And you get to camp,
and we're talking about listening
and acceptance and patience,
and it's like, I don't know about that right now
because my wall is still up,
my really hard shell is still up.
We're about to wake up
the whole camp right now, over walkie.
Here we go, every morning, eight o'clock.
Good morning Camp Say, this is WSAY in the morning.
Let's have a blast today, and have a lot, a lot of fun.
(Travis sings)
It's impossible to have an amazing day
without the long standing tradition of your morning song.
- I went through a period of being kind of an introvert,
just like very quiet.
And I knew that that wasn't my nature.
- Give it up for the one, the only Travis Robertson.
(cheering)
- This sounds so weird, but I would talk to myself a lot,
just like my thoughts.
You know, my dreams, or just like random conversations.
I would talk to myself
because like that's when I felt most comfortable
is when no one was judging me,
and I could just sort of get out all I wanted to say.
Even now there are times where like,
I have to remind myself that it's okay.
It's okay that I stutter.
♪ I sure like Camp Say and all of this food ♪
♪ And I sure like the friends I'm making here too ♪
♪ And I'm thinking back to last night ♪
♪ All the campers gathered round that campfire ♪
♪ We just need one last ingredient so fluffy and white ♪
♪ We're not talking 'bout jello ♪
♪ We roast marshmallows ♪
(cheering)
- It didn't happen when I sang,
which is a lot of the reason why I do it today, you know?
It's a place where I just feel totally just free.
I'm uninhibited.
(cheering)
I don't know what life would have been like
if I didn't have something like that
to just hold on to, you know?
I hope that this experience is that for these kids
to carry with them beyond these two weeks is the hope.
- [Taro] Y'all didn't know he could sing like that.
(cheering)
All right, let's keep the party going,
we got such a fun, action-packed day.
(comforting music)
(chanting)
You ever feel like uncomfortable or scared about a game
you can always come to me, right?
Just come find me, and we'll talk about it, okay?
Okay, we're ready to go back in there?
There are some kids that are coming here
that are in a real dark place
that don't feel like they're important.
There are some kids that are coming here
who've tried to kill themselves.
There are some kids who come here who
feel inferior every single day of their lives.
- [Counselor] Do you wanna catch Taro up about
sort of the way you're feeling right now?
- What's going on?
I want camp to be a profound experience for each kid.
I want it to change their life in some capacity.
For some kids, I want it to turn their lives around.
- We first met here at camp in 2013.
- I walked into the hero,
and then he was playing this game
and I asked this woman named Lauren, "Who's that?"
She was like, "Oh, that's Ronin."
And I was staring at him, ahh,
and he's like, just like playing the game.
He was so oblivious to all my attempts at flirting
until then finally Emily was like, "Dude, she likes you."
And then he's like, "Wait, really, awesome."
So yeah, that's what happened.
- We first met in the New York program
and we really didn't talk.
- Didn't you like ask me out, like over Facebook?
(Julianna laughs)
- Probably did. - He did.
- [Julianna's Mom] Hi Joe, oh my God, this is so nice.
- Right? - He matches so perfectly.
- Before you, you know, meet anyone like cool and accepting,
like you just feel like, like, will I ever, I don't know,
get to meet someone that will love me the same way
like, I could love another person.
People don't wanna be friends with the weird girl.
And that made me meet the nervous,
like am I never gonna have a boyfriend?
I mean I wanna go through
the same things every teenager does.
- I've never been in a relationship and yeah, it's scary
'cause there's still that part of me that's just like,
will I find a guy who like likes me
and like loves my stutter.
I actually had an incident in middle school
where a guy I had a crush on came up to me and told me,
no guy will like you because you talk like that.
- It is my delight to pronounce you husband and wife.
(cheering)
- I remember so clearly just being like hit
with this wave of fear about, will I ever
find somebody to really love me for who I am,
and accept me for the way that I speak.
I was like these kids in Say.
- It's definitely scary to think about
getting married and having kids.
And I often times think about, you know,
from a genetic perspective, are my kid's going to stutter?
I don't know how I feel.
I don't want other people to go through what I went through.
- All right, next topic.
What do you say when someone asks you,
why do you stutter, what's the answer?
- Well, I just say like what my speech therapist has told me
and I'm like, well, it's genetic,
yes, it can be caused from a brain injury,
yes, it can be caused from like other things,
but a lot of time it's genetic,
like literally someone has asked me,
okay, so middle school was a tough time.
One person asked me, "Are you stupid?"
And I'm like, no, like it has nothing to do with my brain.
Like they they thought I was not smart because I stuttered.
- [Teacher] Right, well, I mean,
it does have to do with your brain,
but not how smart you are.
- Yeah, yeah, exactly right.
- Stuttering really is a neurological disorder.
And the reason why you're fluent when you sing
is because, you know, singing
is a very much more of a right brained activity
while talking is a left brain activity.
You know, it's not because I'm emotional or anxious.
People who stutter are emotional and anxious
because they stutter.
- I almost wish like, for me personally,
like I had something on my forehead
that says like I stutter, no, I'm not nervous.
You asking me about it makes me nervous.
Please give me the time of day.
Like, I just want like that.
It's exhausting, stuttering.
Like physically, I feel it in my lips and my jaw,
like my jaw has really tense.
Everything around me stops, like a pause and time.
I get really hot and I just stand there
and it's like, I'm hanging upside down,
like all the blood rushes to my head.
Not everybody stutters the same.
- There's blocking, and there's sound repetition,
and there's word repetition,
and there's syllable repetition.
- Elongation.
- When I'm like in a block,
I can like see it from like another standpoint,
like as I'm doing it, it's like,
ah, this is taking a while. (chuckles)
- I think I probably block the most.
Which is where, you know,
the sounds stops completely.
- Like that.
That just an example.
- Yeah, and I didn't even try.
- What pediatricians for years were actually trained to do
was to advise parents not to talk about the stuttering,
and that if you don't talk about it,
if you don't mention it, it will just go away.
When you have a problem, when nobody talks about it,
it really makes you feel like it's really shameful.
The things that your parents don't talk about
are usually the biggest problems.
If they have a brother who has a drinking problem,
well, we don't talk about uncle Billy's drinking,
or we don't talk about somebody's big, major problems.
You talk about people's problems that aren't that important.
I used to go to bed every night,
and wish that I would wake up and be fluent.
I used to go to bed every night
and wish that I wouldn't wake up sometimes
because I thought that stuttering
was this terrible thing that you had to hide.
- My mom would put me in speech therapy, kindergarten,
first grade, second grade, third grade, fourth grade,
fifth grade, outside of school
because we didn't want anyone to find out.
And I stutter in two languages
and I was just so tired of it.
And I told her, if you want me to live a normal life,
you can't expect people to try to fix me
'cause you can't really fix me.
- I just remember not wanting to even talk about my speech.
I never wanted to talk about it.
I always like hated even calling myself a stutterer,
I didn't like it.
- I was always trying to find a cure for her
or somebody who can help her.
And finally, at the age of seven,
a professional told me you gotta stop.
You know, you have to stop trying to fix this.
If at this age she's still stuttering.
All you can do is help her to manage it.
But she's gonna stutter for the rest of her life.
And that really hit me, that hit me hard.
I didn't handle it well at all.
I knew that her future wasn't gonna be easy.
- It didn't even occur to me
that I was different until I was in first grade.
And this popular girl walked up to me
and she's like, Sarah, what's your middle name?
And I said, Rose, like whatever, sure, friend.
And she goes and she stands on the tabletop,
and she goes S-s-Sarah R-r-rose B-b-berkowitz,
and she throws her orange peels from her lunchbox at me.
And I wish like I had a Say to like make me understand
like, there's not like something wrong with you.
Like you aren't a bad person.
Didn't do something to deserve this.
- For those of you who are new to camp Say,
and haven't heard about this day yet, what we do
is we take all of the campers
and we divide you guys into campers who are a little older
and campers who are a little younger.
So when I call your name, put your hand up.
When Meg calls your name put your hand up,
'cause you guys can wave to each other
so you know who the people are, all right?
I already picked the first name, it' right here,
and it is Emily Purkey.
- [Meg] With Tyrese.
- [Taro] Juliana.
- [Meg] And Mikayla.
- [Taro] Will Davis.
- [Meg] With Malcolm.
- [Taro] Got the waving, see each other.
- In the outside world you're always worrying
about people laughing at you or teasing you.
And it's almost weird going to camp
because for the first few days,
I wasn't used to this idea that like, if I spoke,
like no one would think that it was weird
if I was stuttering.
In fact, he would would think that
it was weird if I didn't stutter.
This is my teacher, Ms. Siegel.
- Hi, Will. - Hi, Ms. Siegel, how are you?
- [Ms. Siegel] Fine thanks.
Will, it brings attention to himself
by being quite literally the tallest person
in the entire school.
He also is fearless and what he contributes to class.
He's a very original thinker, he's a great writer.
- I have a history of being very open
with Ms. Siegel about my speech.
She was probably one of three people
who read my college essay,
which was a very open and heartfelt discussion
of how my speech has affected my life.
So this is the first paragraph of my college essay.
As a person who stutters I'm defined by a tragic irony.
I love the sound a stunning sentence makes in my head.
I love the feeling as I put my pen to paper
and work to create something beautiful.
- [Will's Dad] That's right, how about a W?
- [Will] Yet there is no feeling I know better
than that of a word choked beneath my lips,
struggling to escape, yet strangled beneath my larynx.
My greatest and most unique attribute
is not my six foot six frame,
although that is most visible,
My defining characteristic,
the shaper of my being, molder of my conscience
occurs when I open my mouth to speak.
The words I produce, those mangled, beautiful, ugly words.
Those are who I am.
Something I've always wanted to try,
but haven't had a chance to yet.
I've always wanted to give like a big public speech.
- What is your favorite subject in school?
- Well, I really don't like school.
- Okay.
You could say PE, lunch.
- Carpool. - Carpool, why?
- Going home.
- Okay, that's a good one.
- Friendship, what does it mean?
A close that cannot be seen.
You might think it's a joke,
but with your good friend, you can always share a Coke.
Now, it's good.
- It's good that you're making some new friends who stutter,
did ya know, cause we're pretty cool
if I do say so myself.
- WSAY. (applause)
- [Taro] You know how I usually say WSAY in the morning,
well this is WSAY in the evening, you feel me, okay.
- [Announcer] And in the evening it's real, real chill.
- [Taro] It's so chill that there's something
that's not allowed in this room.
Clapping. - We ain't clapping tonight.
- [Taro] The way that we celebrate each other tonight,
that's right, we snap it up. - We snapping.
- This is WSAY evening edition, only snaps.
The focus of tonight is about your teamwork
and anything that you'd like to express to your buddy.
And here at Camp Say,
we all have as much time as we need to speak
with no time pressure at all.
And no pressure to say anything at all,
if you don't want to.
So without further ado, are there any buddies
that would like to come up here and share something?
How about those two in the front, come on up.
- Friendship, what does it mean?
- Close connection that cannot be seen.
- Good friends can talk however long they want.
- And if you stutter they will never taunt.
(applause)
- Me and my buddy wrote a poem and we said,
friendship is nice, that's right, and bright.
Friendship is cool, hanging in the pool, don't be a fool.
Friendship is fun just like the sun.
And friendship is awesome just like a possum.
(laughter)
- I'm not okay that for two weeks a year,
the people that happen to be here,
get to know these kids in a way that
their families don't know
or their friends don't know or their teachers don't know
or their speech therapist don't know.
The whole point of this place is to instill them
with this confidence and this hope
and this knowledge that they're wonderful.
And then to send them back
into their everyday lives with that
so that they can be their true selves.
- Hello.
Sit down, relax, let's be chill.
I'm Guy, thank you guys.
- Hi.
My name's Kendall.
(applause) - Thank you, Kendall.
- Me and my buddy Arman were hanging out
because it was his last two weeks of camp.
- There's a lot of sadness in this world.
There's a lot of sadness in being someone who stutters,
there's a lot of pain involved in that.
There's a lot of tears that need to be shed.
So being able to do that and get that out.
And then what's on the other side of that rainbow
is this other side of you, kind of the real you.
- Hey, there it is. (clapping)
- Got 'em. (shouting)
(cheering)
- Do you feel like your teachers understand stuttering?
Not at all.
Do you feel like you get cut off sometimes,
like people try and answer for you?
- [Malcolm] Mm-hmm.
There's a difference between knowing something cognitively
and knowing something emotionally.
A lot of people cognitively understand
that it would be better for them
to just tell everyone that they stutter
before they have a conversation.
What do you think that'll be like
if you talk to your teacher?
- She would understand.
- I hope so.
I think that's a really cool idea.
You can know that that's a great thing to do,
but if you're not emotionally ready to do it,
it's never gonna happen.
- Aw, thought that was going in.
- You have to really believe
that you have the strength to do that.
And you have to believe that
it's gonna make a difference in your life.
You feel like you can say what you wanna say here?
- Yeah. - Great.
You can't always make the shot you wanna make.
- Good morning, everybody.
I'd like to welcome you to Camp Say.
My name is Taro Alexander
and I'm the founder and director of Camp Say.
It's a true pleasure to welcome you here.
Your kids are so remarkable and talented and kind,
and we're looking forward to showing you around today
and showing you some of the things that we've done.
- I think one of the most important things
we've learned over the last year or so
is this stutter doesn't have to be something we focus on.
Doesn't have to be something that impedes you
from having a great life, right?
And that message in some ways,
conflicts a little bit with the idea of working on it,
or doing therapy or focusing on it
or trying to improve it.
And I'm really curious how everybody
strikes that balance, right?
When we hear the word therapy,
we think, oh, they need to be fixed.
It basically is simply something that gives them
the confidence and the tools when they need it.
Once I came to terms with the fact
that he's gonna stutter for the rest of his life
and I accepted it, he started to.
- I'm the type of father who thinks
he can fix anything for his family,
with Melanie and the stuttering I couldn't.
She would say, you know,
Dad, it's not getting any better
and it doesn't look like I'm gonna grow out of it.
And you know, we talked about it and she said, you know,
it's just tough when you can't even say your name.
- [Emily] Wide-eyed at lunchtime.
First grade seemed quite fine
until they asked for my middle name, and I took my time.
"S-s-sarah R-r-rose B-b-berkowitz,"
they chanted to me as they stood up on the tables
and threw orange peels aggressively.
- We enrolled her in a program in Boston
and it was intensive.
Three weeks later, she's giving a presentation
in front of 50 people with zero bumpiness.
And that was just before we came to Camp Say.
- Class presentation at eight years old,
my words got stuck and I was out of luck
as my fellow classmates laughed at me.
- Taro had mentioned to me that, you know,
stuttering is a lifelong journey.
That intense therapy that Melanie went through,
there would be some digression in her speech.
So I just took a moment, got myself together
'cause I didn't know how I'd react walking in
and seeing Melanie for the first time
and trying not to analyze the first word
that comes out of her mouth.
I gave her a hug, gave her a kiss
and asked her if she had a great time.
And unfortunately she didn't.
(mournful music)
As a parent, I want my daughter to improve
and I wanna see improvement in her stuttering.
She's stuttering more than I had hoped for.
She's in tears, obviously we were in tears
when we first met her.
This is not the greatest experience for her, unfortunately.
- 15-years-old and life is hard.
I wish I wasn't dealt this card.
Why do I talk like this, why me?
Did I do something wrong, what's wrong with me?
My head's spinning with questions
and it's never gonna stop.
That's why I end up on the bottom and never on the top.
- I think for parents that are sending their kids here
with this desire of, I want the stutter to go away,
man, I get it, I so get it.
I have a beautiful three and a half year old daughter
who's stuttering right now.
This is my daughter, Hazel.
Do you have a title?
Nope, okay.
This is my daughter, Hazel, who is awesome.
(applause)
I also know that we're laying the foundation right now
for her to love herself just the way she is.
- 16-years-old and as happy as can be.
I'm with all of my friends who can really understand me.
- Going from a three week fluency intensive program
to a place where you're surrounded by people
who are saying stuttering is okay.
I mean, just those two things back to back,
I think are hard.
I think if it was the opposite,
I think it would have been pretty outstanding.
- I found my home, I can finally fit in.
This is where I belong, where everyone gets along.
No more tormenting, no more tears.
I feel better than I have in years.
Camp Say is my home, I am not and will never be alone.
- My son's with a speech therapist at school,
he said to her, "I don't want to do this anymore"
"because if I didn't stutter, I wouldn't be me."
I cried my eyes out, and I said.
- Good morning Camp Say, this is WSAY.
Hope y'all had a great night sleep
and hope y'all are ready for Teams Day, Championship Day.
So the word of the day today is teamwork.
I know I'm feeling ready, feeling confident,
feeling ready to let everybody's light shine today
and be the true champions that you are.
'Cause everyone is a champion today, and every day.
- [Instructor] Fire when you're ready,
(arrow thuds) (crowd cheers)
(arrow thuds) (crowd shouts)
(whistle chirps) - It's all over!
- Carter, Carter. - Let's go Carter, let's go.
- (claps) Let's go Carter, let's go! (claps)
(cheering)
- [Announcer] All right, guys,
it's time for some basketball!
(shouting)
- These counselors want it bad.
Players this year, they have a title to defend.
(chanting)
(shouting)
- Splash Warriors on three, one, two, three!
- [Everyone] Splash Warriors!
(clapping)
- [Announcer] Nine, eight, seven, six,
five, four, three, two, one!
(whistle chirps)
(shouting)
(cheering)
- [Announcer] Splash Warriors! (cheering)
(applause)
- That's a lot of contact ref, a lot of contact.
(cheering) - Woo!
(cheering)
- Pick it up, pick it up, let's go, let's go!
- [Announcer] Eight, seven, six, five, four,
three, two, one.
(shouting)
- [Interviewer] How much was that shot
at the end of the half a shift in momentum,
and how do you play the counter to start the second half?
- You know, I'm not too worried about it.
We've been focusing on bonding, coming together like a team.
So like I think little things like that
won't shake our unity.
I trust my guys.
(chanting)
- I just think that they gotta dig deep.
You know we're playing a really good team.
The campers are really strong this year,
they have great teamwork, talented players.
- Let's bring the heat, I think we can come back.
- Let's do this you guys, come on!
- On three, one, two, three. - Heat!
- [Everyone] Teamwork makes the dream work!
(clapping) (whistle chirps)
- [Taro] Hands up, hands up, yes!
Keep those hands up!
(cheering)
- [Announcer] 11, 10, nine, eight, seven,
six, five, four, three, two, one!
(whistle screeches)
- There you go, there you go!
We have the momentum, they don't know what happened,
they're seriously shocked right now.
One, two, three.
- [Everyone] Teamwork makes the dream work!
- Be ready, all right, be ready.
(cheering)
- The contact, man.
(cheering)
(shouting)
- [Announcer] Five, four, three, two, one!
(whistle chirps)
(shouting)
- It's called championship day
not because of this basketball game.
It's called championship day
because each and every one of you are champions.
And you're champions because of what's in here
inside your heart.
It's hard to be there for each other all day long.
We've been going since 9:45 in the morning
with just a few little breaks here and there.
And the support that you guys give each other
so that every single person had a moment to shine.
That's what being a champion is.
You came into this camp, a champion,
whether you knew it or not.
We didn't do anything,
but give you the opportunity to shine.
So remember that.
Remember that that's in your heart
and you have the capability
of being a champion every single day.
You just gotta do it and believe it.
I love you guys very much.
Congratulations on a great championship day.
(cheering)
I was, I think 25 or 26 years old,
and I was doing a play out in Colorado.
I was on the phone with my grandparents.
They asked me the name of the play that I was in,
they couldn't remember the name of the play.
I couldn't couldn't say the name without stuttering a lot.
It was like probably the longest stutter that I've had.
And I was like, kind of pounding on the table
or pounding on myself or doing something
to physically just get it to come out
and it wasn't coming out and it wasn't coming out.
I ended up physically sitting on the floor of my closet
and like yanking at a shirt,
just pulling at the shirt with all my might.
Just trying to yank it down to get this word out, sweating.
Finally, I like yanked this shirt so hard the word came out,
And you know, my grandparents
are the greatest people in the world.
They said, oh right, that that's what it was.
Sorry, we couldn't remember.
It was one of those moments where you see yourself,
like from outside of yourself,
I was just looking at this picture, like I'm 26 years old,
I'm sitting on the floor in my closet, sweating.
There was no one to talk to about it.
And I couldn't say to my grandparents,
man, that was so hard, stuttering is so sometimes
because I had hit that for 15 years.
And I just sat there and I was feeling so incredibly lonely
and scared and just pitiful.
And in that moment I looked at myself
and I said, you need to change, something needs to change.
This hiding, this constant hiding
and not talking about this thing
that is driving every moment of your life has to change.
Fear was the main feeling that dictated my choices.
I want these kids to not live that way.
I want them to go for it.
And not let fear dictate their daily life.
One of the biggest things about today
is making sure that the kids feel ready
to face the world tomorrow because this place is great.
And then tomorrow they gotta go back to the real world.
Travis, come on up.
- We're a family.
I look around and I see family.
That's something that I have come
to know the meaning of better and better
in these past few years of my life.
I'm proud to say that you all are a part of my family.
Hold onto this time and take it far beyond these two weeks
because I know that I will.
I love all of you guys.
And I want you to know that you're all incredibly special.
- They may have felt that stuttering
was the problem in their life,
but when they meet 20 other kids who stutter
in 20 other different ways and they get to see some kid,
who's just like me.
Who's the greatest kid at basketball at his school
or I'm seeing a kid who is just like me,
who's asking questions to the adults in the room.
Or I'm seeing a kid who's just like me
who seems to be struggling even more than I am.
That makes it harder to really buy into the idea
that you're the only one.
And that your stutter defines you
as much as you think it does.
- One thing that Malcolm loves to do
is like pushups and stuff.
So I told Malcolm that if there's ever
like a girl walking past and he's doing pushups,
he should just immediately go 99, 100.
(Malcolm laughs) - Right so that way
you seem even like tougher and stronger, right?
- Yeah, and doing dips.
- The dips. - Yeah.
It's like the same thing with the pushups.
You do like one, two.
- [Both] 99, 100. (laughs)
(fire crackles) (crickets chirp)
- Coming around right now,
everyone's gonna get a paper plate.
I want you to write down on that plate,
a wish or a memory from this summer at Camp Say.
Want you guys to walk towards the lake,
the counselors are there with some little candles,
and then you're going to put the plates
with the candle on it in the lake.
That's your way of sending your wish out there.
And throughout the evening,
the lake will just get more and more filled
with our wishes and dreams and memories.
We're gonna open up the circle for anyone that
would like to say anything.
You'd like to share something, just raise your hand.
- Throughout my childhood, I couldn't make any friends.
Each year in my head, I said,
these people actually care about me?
What did I ever do to deserve it?
And now this year, I finally have my answer.
I got this just for being me.
So thank you.
- The amount of pain
that is caused by stuttering is not determined on age,
but how long you go without knowing that stuttering is okay.
- One of my bunkmates said something and he said,
you know, we have to leave home to come to camp,
and now we have to leave camp to go home.
But tomorrow I'm not going home.
I'm going to camp.
And then in a year, I'm coming back home here.
If everyone could just take a moment,
put your hands down and look up.
You find a star,
put all your energy on focusing on that one star.
Just keep looking at that star.
And tomorrow night, wherever you are, look up at the sky
and know that when you're looking up at that sky,
when you're looking up at those stars,
we'll all be looking up there too.
And that we are right there beside you.
And we're whispering in your ear, you can do it.
And we're whispering in your ear, you're not alone.
- This is my third year here, and for the past two years,
I would have been crying my eyes out
because I would have been so, so sad
to leave this amazing place.
But right now I'm excited to be completely honest.
I'm so excited to bring all of these friendships
and all of these emotions back into the real world.
Just hearing everyone's thoughts
and hearing your beautiful voices, it just inspires me.
- Nothing used to worry me more than my future
until I came here and I found
the most powerful thing in the world, which is hope.
And there's one person in this camp has inspired me the most
and he's not here right now because he's nine years old,
he's probably asleep, but that's Malcolm.
Malcolm's had a really hard life.
Look at him now.
There's never a time he doesn't have a smile on his face.
And the fact that he's gone through things
I can never even imagine.
And he's still the way he is inspired me so much.
I could not be more thankful for the opportunities
that this camp's given me and for all that it's taught me.
(melancholy music)
- [Interviewer] What's your best advice for Will
going forward into college?
- Don't let nothing stop you
from reaching your own goal.
- Perfect.
- Goodbye Will.
- [Meg] If I call your name
please make your way out the blacktop.
- [Emily] And I literally live across the country from you.
- That's okay, I'll just run there with my pigeon toes
like Forrest Gump, just cross country and grow a beard.
I'm already halfway there, I have to wax my upper lip.
(laughter)
- The world needs you,
the world really, really needs you Tiana.
You are Say Julianna.
And not because you're a beautiful singer,
not because you write amazing songs
because of who you are in your heart.
I just beg of you to keep believing in yourself.
- This is like our break from reality.
- If the first step is, I think that stuttering is okay.
If you can get that foundation there and strong and real,
you can do whatever you want.
You can do this, keep reaching out for support,
we're all here for you, yeah?
And that sentence it's okay that I stutter,
that took a very, very long time for me.
That takes a lifetime for some people.
(mournful music)
(bats clang)
- When he came back from Camp Say
he was very happy and very positive about himself.
I didn't really know who he was, (laughs) to be honest.
I was like, "Is this you",
"what happened to my Malcolm?" (laughs)
- You really believe in yourself, right?
And you know that you have something
really important to say, right?
- Yep.
- I feel much better now that he knows
it's okay to have a stutter.
He starting to accept himself for who he is.
And tomorrow there's gonna be a lot of people there
that are gonna be really interested in what you have to say.
You're such a good writer and you're such a great speaker.
- Thank you. - My goodness.
You were just the man.
He's got it going on.
We can't change the way we love, the color of our skin,
you know, our eyes, anything.
And I wouldn't want him to change his speech, you know.
I love him just the way he is.
- I dealt with stuttering as a kid,
dealt with it my whole life.
The most important thing is you live the life
that you wanna live.
Don't let it stop you from doing anything.
Don't be bad.
Don't be bad and say this is who I am, don't do that.
- All right.
- When you have a stuttering problem
it's harder to make friends.
Some of my classmates are bullies
that torment and then harass me.
They have kicked me, tripped and push me.
I am being bullied sometimes
when I'm standing in the lunch line,
in the hallway, in the classroom, at recess,
and sometimes on a van that brings me home after school.
At that moment, I felt like
that I was on a planet all by myself,
trapped and cut off from the world.
It is a everyday battle for me to speak.
I believe that love has the power to crush any barrier.
I am breaking down my stuttering barrier
and moving forward you using courage and determination.
Thank you. (applause)
(cheering)
- I was like nervous,
'cause I didn't want to mess up,
but I don't think I did.
This mentality of getting frustrated at someone
for taking a long time to order at Starbucks,
or a car not immediately moving on a green light,
or even getting annoyed at the freshmen
for standing in the middle of the hallway astounds me.
We want things now.
And this pressure of our fast pace world
really affects the stuttering community.
Just be patient, stop and listen.
Because for all you know someone could say
the most inspirational, insightful,
and incredible few words you'll ever hear in your life.
And they can take five minutes to say them, thank you.
(applause)
- [Everett] Two, three, four, check, check, one, two.
- This coming to an end with Say,
I'm a little bit worried about that.
- [Interviewer] How do you mean?
- Like I think she's gonna be extremely sad.
I mean, it's been such a big part of her life.
(upbeat music)
♪ Well I believe that I can make a change ♪
♪ Look out world I'm gonna say what I have to say ♪
♪ If you try to dream be all you can be ♪
♪ Put your hand up put your put your hand up ♪
♪ Put your hand up ♪
♪ (singing indistinctly) ♪
(Julianna cries softly)
- One time Taro approached me,
and he said, "Do you know Julianna has an amazing voice?"
And I said, "She does?"
(chuckles) I didn't know.
He said, "Do you mind if she stays a little longer today"
"because Everett wants to work with her"
"on a song that she wrote."
- [Interviewer] How old was she?
- She was eight years old, yeah.
- We have a huge group of graduating seniors
in our program this year.
If you're a graduating senior,
come on in the middle of the circle.
(applause)
You guys are our future.
So the pledge I wanna know,
can you live your life with courage, let me hear you.
- [Seniors] Yes.
- Can you live your life with bravery?
- [Seniors] Yes.
- And can you not give up on your dreams
even when it gets really hard?
- [Seniors] Yes.
All right, I want a group hug with you guys.
(applause)
- Stuttering isn't something that gets a lot of attention.
I think stuttering gets 15 minutes here and there.
But if you are a child who stutters it's 24/7,
just a couple of weeks ago,
we got a call from a family and there was a young man
who we know who tried to take his own life.
And you know,
he's just a kid.
And to think that that's the option
that's better than getting up and going out and stuttering.
- You know, it's like life is like building these bricks,
building this fountain.
I want tonight to be like a solid brick in their life.
- Are you all right? - Yeah, I'm fine.
- The gala is the scariest show of all.
- Yeah, why is that?
- There's about 300 people here.
- Probably about 500 people.
- My God!
- You've got this.
- There are over 70 million people who stutter in the world,
including 5% of all children.
Every day, kids who stutter shutdown.
How many silent kids are sitting at the back
in the classroom, who are actually brilliant?
Who are just pretending not to know the answers
because they're afraid to talk,
because they're terrified of being
bullied or ridiculed about the way they speak.
These kids who stutter will go on
to do all kinds of different things.
They just need the opportunity to do it.
♪ I didn't give up ♪
♪ Hardships in my life told me to never give up ♪
- My name is Amy and I graduate Say
with the confidence to face the world.
(applause)
My name is Will,
and I graduate Say with a voice.
(applause)
- Thank you you guys so much for being here
to support these amazing young people.
So when Juliana started coming to Say
she was seven years old
and had never met another person who stutters it,
It has been truly a remarkable journey
to watch her grow up over the years.
Juliana is smart, kind, creative,
and she inspires me every single day.
Juliana Padilla. (applause)
Confidence.
A word that did
not exist in my
vocabulary.
I absolutely hated my stuttering.
I thought, why me?
Why am I even here?
I shouldn't have to hide the fact that I stutter.
I have a right to be heard because of Say,
I've found my voice.
I now
feel like I have a purpose in this world
and a reason to live.
Thank you so much for listening.
(applause)
(hopeful music)
- I just want that mentality of stuttering
as a negative thing to end.
And I'm so passionate about just letting you know
that it's okay, it's okay, it's more than okay.
I felt so sure that I was gonna be a nurse.
And then now I'm like having second thoughts.
I don't know a lot of things in my life has changed.
I wanna spend my time on something
that I really, really love,
and that's that's music.
That's theater.
That's singing.
- I've been a bit on edge.
I think that's an understatement. (laughs)
Hello, Class of 2017.
I never thought I would be delivering this.
My self confidence wasn't as good back then
because of all of the teasing,
and now look at me now bitches. (laughs)
We all have a voice and a choice.
Gifts that we can use to crush and silence
or to encourage and empower.
Today I challenge us to go out into the world
and learn about the people and cultures
that are different from who we are and where we come from,
to hear people for what they say, not how they say it,
to build bridges instead of walls.
Our future hasn't been written yet.
Class of 2017, let's write a good one.
(applause)
- This has become one of my favorite nights of the year.
I look forward to this so much.
My stuttering in a way was a gift
because it helped me develop my curiosity
and my listening abilities and my ability to observe.
- I've been stuttering for 55 years.
You can do it, your voice does matter.
(applause)
♪ Now it's our time to say rock it out ♪
♪ Say rock it out ♪
♪ Now it's our time to say rock it out ♪
♪ Say rock it out ♪
♪ Now it's our time to say get loose ♪
♪ Say get loose ♪
♪ Now it's our time to say get hyped ♪
♪ Say get hyped ♪
♪ Now it's our time to say love ♪
♪ Say love ♪
♪ Now it's our time say bravery ♪
♪ Say bravery ♪
♪ Now it's our time to say get down ♪
♪ Say get down ♪
♪ Now it's our time to say get down ♪
♪ Say get down ♪
♪ Now it's our time to say peace ♪
♪ Say peace ♪
♪ Now it's our time to say compassion ♪
♪ Say compassion ♪
♪ Now it's our time to say get loud ♪
♪ Say get loud ♪
♪ Now it's our time to say good show ♪
♪ Say good show ♪
♪ Now it's our time to say good show ♪
♪ Say good show ♪
♪ Now it's our time to say love ♪
♪ Say love ♪
- There we go. (cheering)
♪♪