Joey Cheek is a United States Olympic speed skater who won a bronze medal at the 2002 Olympics in Salt Lake City and a gold and a silver medal in the 2006 Olympic Games in Turin. He is especially good at the short races, as he got all three medals in races of no more than 1000 meters in length. In fact, Joey became the World Sprint Champion in the Netherlands in 2006.
But Joey Cheek's greatest accomplishments are from what he does off the ice, supporting a charity called Right to Play. After winning the gold medal in the Turin Olympics earlier this year, Joey decided to give his USOC gold medal bonus, a total of $25,000 given to any American who wins a gold medal, to an international humanitarian organization called Right to Play. Joey then challenged the companies who sponsor the Olympics to match his donations. When Joey won the silver medal later in the games, he added that bonus of $15,000 to the charity as well. But it didn't stop there. Because of Joey's challenge, over $300,000 more was donated to Right to Play as of February 2006 from companies including The Gap and Nike. However, the most remarkable of the donations was that of Clara Hughes, a Canadian speed skater who gave $10,000 to Right to Play even though Canada doesn't give Olympic medal bonuses.
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Right to Play is an organization that uses sports to promote development of unfortunate children around the world. Joey was particularly interested in helping the children of Sudanese refugees in Chad. The slogan of Right to Play is "Look after yourself, look after one another." Joey Cheek especially symbolized this idea when he said "I've always felt that if I ever did something big like this I wanted to be prepared to give something back." He then acted upon this belief by challenging the Olympics sponsors to donate to Right to Play. Joey noticed that the companies spend millions of dollars on advertisements and he wanted to see some of that money used to help unfortunate children around the world.
In April 2006, Joey took a trip to Zambia, where he played games with the impoverished children through the Right to Play organization. Joey said that he expected the children to be miserable and almost helpless. But he found that he was wrong, saying that "despite the obvious poverty of these children it was remarkable how normal and happy they all seemed." But Joey knows that they simply happen to be unlucky, and he said "if I had been born into a poor village in Africa I would be no different than any of them." Joey wants to send this message to the people of the United States to raise awareness of the tragedies that occur in African countries and how Americans can help out.
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The average salary for a speed skater is $54,000 per year. Compared to some baseball players who make over $20,000,000 per year, this is a small amount of money. If Joey Cheek's message was heard by baseball players as well as speed skaters, then improving the poor countries of the world wouldn't seem like such a difficult task. Joey's donations actually made up a large percentage of his salary, and his challenge to others collected more money than he could possibly have given alone. Joey realizes that he can't do it all alone and wants the whole world to contribute to the cause.
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Joey Cheek illustrates faith in that he believes that Americans can make a difference in the war-torn and impoverished countries of Africa. He gave all of his Olympic money to charity and deserves credit for $300,000 spent toward Right to Play. He sees how much of a difference he can make by committing a single act in front of the entire world. Instead of gloating about how much money he won, he gave it all to charity and acted as a role model for the entire world. He also spread the news that there are ways for the average person to help out around the world. Joey Cheek has faith in the idea that fortunate people should give to less fortunate people and that the lives of the poor can be changed by regular people.
