The Dick Beardsley Foundation is a 501 (c)(3) non-profit organization. The Foundation will educate people about the benefits of living an active, healthy lifestyle, chemically free. Initially the Foundation will focus its efforts on children and young adults. It will reach these people by having speakers visit schools. As child obesity is becoming a larger problem, the Foundation believes it is important to educate children at an early age about the benefits of exercising and living an active, healthy lifestyle, chemically free. The Foundation's speakers will take under consideration the fact that different children have different needs and opportunities, but intends to focus a great deal of its resources and expertise on the benefits of exercising and being outdoors.
Education about chemical dependency The Foundation will also have speakers visit schools and companies to educate people, both children and adults, about the danger of using drugs. Dick Beardsley will use his own life experiences as an example of how easy it can be to become addicted to drugs, and how hard it can be to get out of such addiction.
The Foundation's goal when having speakers speaking about chemical dependency is two tier. First, the Foundation wants to educate people about the warning signs of chemical dependency, the different ways a person can treat his or her chemical dependency, and how a person may receive help. The Foundation's speakers will focus on real life experience and examples to make the education easy to absorb. Second, the Foundation wants to start a dialog, to make people more comfortable and less afraid to discuss the subject matter of chemical abuse. The Foundation believes that once people are able to more openly talk about the problem of chemical abuse, it will be easier to deal with the problem and work towards curing people.
The Foundation would like to help people who are in need treatment, but can't afford it, receive the treatment that they need.
Here is a poem that Dick finds especially motivational:
When things go wrong, as they sometimes will
When the road you’re trudging seems all uphill
When the funds are low and the debts are high
And you want to smile and you have to sigh
Rest if you must, but don’t ever Quit.
For life is queer with its twists and turns
As every one of us sometimes learns
And many a failure has turned about
When we might have won had we stuck it out
So don’t give up though the pace seems slow
You might succeed with another blow
Often the goal is nearer than
It seems to a faint and faltering man
Often the struggler has given up
When you might have captured the victor’s cup
And you learned too late when the night slipped down
How close you were to the golden crown
Success is failure turned inside out
The silver tint of the clouds of doubt
You can never tell how close you are
It may be near when it seems afar
So stick to the fight when you’re hardest hit
It’s when things seem the worst
That You Mustn’t Quit
