On Saturday, February 28th Eric Day and Daniel Flynn held a book signing at St. Michael School in Plymouth. Both boys attended elementary school at St. Michael’s. The event was planned by Title One Aid Gina Young and Teacher Carmen Chaney.
St. Michael Principal, Amy Weidner introduced Eric Day wrote the book “Stay Positive” and Daniel Flynn who illustrated the book. She said, “They have created this beautiful book emerged from a situation that was a tragedy in the beginning for a family but has come a true gift, not only for their family but for our whole community.”
Eric spoke to the kids in the audience asking “Who can define what a problem is?” Andy Young explained, “He had a problem with his ear that wasn’t right.” Eric better defined it as “something we can’t always control, but that we need to get an end result, like a speed bump in the road.” He talked about fixing the problem using a positive attitude and explained what a positive attitude can do for a person. Day said, “If you keep looking on the bright-side you can accomplish whatever it is you want.”
Eric told his story to the kids including when he was born he was basically deaf in both ears. He said speaking was an issue for him and in school he found a friend who helped him, Jay Kenny. Eric said, “I found out how awesome and how positive he was.” Kenny was affected by cancer in the 7th grade but his positive attitude helped him though his battle.
Eric’s freshman year in college at Indiana State he was diagnosed with a tumor in his brain. After two surgeries in Indianapolis Eric began to get better because of the positive attitude he had. The book begins when Eric’s mass grew back and he had to have proton radiation therapy to stop it. While going through therapy he met a 6 year old girl, Allison who was battling stage 4 cancer. Her positive attitude made Eric realize that being positive was the way he wanted to live his life.
He did go back to college and with the encouragement of Allison he applied to Butler a third time and was accepted and graduated Butler University.
Eric said, “The only disability of life is a negative attitude.” He closed by saying, “Life is good. I’ve beaten cancer twice and I started the Stay Positive Campaign.” He started with the rubber wrist bands that say “Stay Positive”. They are in all 50 states and 12 countries overseas. They go through about 5,000 wrist bands a month. Day said a lot of superstars wear them: Coach Pagano from the Colts, Coach Stevens from the Celtics, and Kyle Rudolph for the Vikings wears them.
All students 15 and under who attended the event were treated to a free book. Eric and Daniel then took time to meet with each child and autographed their books.
