 April 7, 2011 (Orlando, Florida) - Consolo Adams was our first Student-Athlete to join our ASA Program's Honor Roll. To commemorate the special occasion, we invited Consolo back to Orlando to receive his trophy during our 2nd Annual Gala Dinner & Caribbean Fete. Consolo had to make his first speech ever to banquet hall packed with KLF supporters. We thought he did a wonderful job and are sharing the transcript of his speech here:
Good evening Ladies and Gentlemen. My name is Consolo Adams from St. Vincent & the Grenadines, the town of Barrouallie.
Thank you to Kerosene Lamp Foundation for this award. I have worked very hard this year and I am very proud to receive it.
 My trip to Orlando was very important to me. I felt very special and happy to be one of the six persons that were selected to go Orlando, from St. Vincent and the Grenadines. And also it was my first time travelling to America, and riding a plane. It gave me the motivation to continue working towards my life- goal of becoming a NBA player. The experience of playing was a special one as there are no indoor facilities in my country.
During my stay in Orlando, I learnt a lot of life lessons, for example, how to manage my money when I start working. I learnt that there are three things that you can do with your money; you can give it away, spend it, or you can save it, and plan wisely how to maximize it. Also I learnt that it is very important that I get a good education to go along with my skills on the court. I became more conscious of the need for educational development, and not only focusing on being a good player. And of course, I also learnt that you have to train very hard, and long to become a NBA player.
The experiences from the trip have had a lot of positive influence on my life. It has made me realize that I have to work harder to achieve my goal in life. It gave me a lot of new experiences, I was fortunate to visit the wonders of the world, for example Bush Gardens, Universal Studio where I rode the roller coasters for the first time, it was fun. It also changed my life by making me more popular in my country, it made me feel special, as persons are now aware of my talents.
The most long lasting effect was the realization of the need to focus more on my education. This impacted me greatly as I wasn’t doing as well as I should have. It also taught me a lot about life in America, and also how to conduct myself at all time. These things I have adopted into my lifestyle, and is sharing in my community with my friends.
After the trip, The Foundation started a mentorship program to aid in our continued development. My mentor Mr. Lorson Lewis has been assisting me a lot. By having a mentor it made things a lot easier for me, my mentor would help me out with a lot of things. He would help me with my school work whenever I have problems, and is always there to motivate me to work harder.
He was there to assist my planning for my community project, to teach children basketball. We also spend a lot of time talking to each other about sports, as well as watching games together. I am very grateful to have a mentor, as he is always there, and puts me on the right track by telling me right from wrong.
I was also required to develop and execute a community project. I decided to dedicate some time to coaching Basketball to young children in my community. My training has been going great thus far. The kids are very interesting to learn basketball, I have training every Friday evening, and my work is very easy as most of the kids learn very fast.
However, I am having problems as the facility where I conduct my training, does not have proper hoops. This is preventing me from doing some of the things that I would really want to do with them. The kids are very interesting despite this lack of proper equipment. They are so interested that when I was sick they came at my home to barrow a ball, so they can play on the court. We started with basic basketball training for example, passing, dribbling and shooting, and I was so impressed with one of the kids, that I choose one of them to go with me to my training, because he loves to play basketball.
I am very fortunate to be a part of this program. Already I have seen the positive impact that it has on my life, and I hope that you all can continue to support this program, as I would love to see more kids from my country benefit from being a part of this program as well.
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