Last winter, Berg joined the “I Run for Michael Foundation,” at the suggestion of Todd Nicholson, another local member. The group for runners and other fitness athletes, pairs them with people with disabilities that prevent them from such activities. In the relationships, each helps motivate the other, while bringing awareness to the needs of the specially abled.
Berg was teamed with Jared Brown, a member of the class of 2014 at Parkland High School in Pennsylvania. Due to the extreme distance, the two had never met in person, but have come to know each other over Skype and other social media.
Berg has been Jared’s legs. And in a sense, Jared has been Berg’s heart.
“The group was really starting to gain popularity. When I signed up in November, I was number 1,400 on the waiting list of runners to be matched up. In February they told me they had a boy in Pennsylvania, and I started communicating with his mother on Facebook,” Berg said. “I started to learn his story and there were so many things he was going through.”
Jared was diagnosed with cerebral palsy when he was 14 months old. More recently, doctors have learned that he is actually suffering from dystonia, a progressive neurological disorder that causes involuntary contraction of the muscles. He struggles to move and speak. Jared has had three surgeries in his high school years, the most recent to insert a pump into his stomach to speed delivery of medication directly to his muscles through his spinal fluid. He had been confined to a wheelchair since age 14, but he had a plan.
When he graduated, he was going to walk across that stage to get his diploma. And his new friend Ryan was invited to share the moment.
Unfortunately, Berg had to beg off. As a baseball coach at St. Mary’s, his team had a game scheduled that night with Laurens-Marathon.
He felt bad about missing Jared’s big moment, and when Laurens couldn’t field a team this summer, things suddenly fell into place. Ryan contacted Jared’s mother, and they arranged for his trip to be a surprise.
After a weekend game in Carroll, Ryan headed for the airport, and arrived in Allentown several hours before the graduation ceremony. Jared’s mom Jana picked him up at the airport, and when he walked into their house, Jared was stunned for a moment, then wheeled his chair at top speed to Ryan and pulled him down into a tight hug. Ryan got a surprise, too. A local TV station crew was there to record the whole thing.
If the runners are supposed to inspire their disabled partners, Berg says the opposite is true in his case.
“Jared is one of the most unbelievable kids you could ever meet. He had been motivated to walk at his graduation, and had worked so hard at it all the time. At the ceremony, they wheeled his chair up on the stage, with his physical therapist and an aide who works with him at school there on either side. Jared pulled himself up and started to walk across the stage to the principal. As soon as he came to his feet, the whole crowd of 800 graduates stood up and the entire place went crazy. It was one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen, and I’m very grateful to have been there and to have the family share the experience with me.”
In recent months, Berg has suffered some injuries that have often kept him from from his usual running schedule. The very frustrations he has felt at being unable to run have helped him communicate with Jared on a deeper level, he feels.
“With everything he has had to struggle with, he is a very determined, very motivated young person. What he sets his mind to, he is going to accomplish.” Berg said of his young friend.
In connecting with Jared’s family, Berg has learned another side to Jared — who in their conversations never likes to talk much about himself.
“For the past couple of years, he has insisted on giving away all of the Christmas presents he had received to the kids in the pediatric segment of their local hospital. And for Christmas this year, when his family asked what he wanted, Jared said that he wanted to feed the homeless. So Christmas found the family working at a shelter in nearby Bethlehem.
Jared is an A student who doesn’t take “can’t” for an answer. When he signed up for a sign language class at his school, he was told that staff didn’t think he could keep up due to his limitations.
“So he taught himself sign language, and when he went back and showed them what he could do, they had to let him join the class and he ended up with pretty much straight A’s. You don’t come across a kid like that very often,” Berg said. “He is way more inspiration to me than I could ever be to him.”
The teacher in Berg doesn’t allow inspiration to go wasted, either. Shortly after getting matched with Jared, he began to share the boy’s story with his students at St. Mary’s. “They’ve all heard about him and seen pictures,” he said. “When he was going in for surgery, a couple of my classes made little videos to wish him well.”
Berg often shares the same advice with his students that he discusses with Jared. “It’s all about having goals to set for yourself, something you are shooting for to keep you moving forward and doing the best you can,” he says.
As for running, Berg grew up competing in track and cross country, but after high school and college, he got away from it. He says he places the “blame” for his running passion on longtime friend and former St. Mary’s colleague Phil Skamser.
“Fifteen or 16 years ago Skamser roped me into doing the Fourth of July Ride-Run, and we’ve been doing it ever since. I run mostly 5Ks, but it’s something that encourages you to keep active and stay in shape.”
And since he’s running for Jared, he never lacks for motivation to hit the road.
Berg says he will always remember the look on Jared’s face when they first met, how he thanked him “probably a hundred times” for making the trip, and how Jared told his friend that he loved him.
“He’s the kind of person that tells you exactly how he feels,” Berg reflected during the drive home from the airport Wednesday. “It feels great to know you have made a difference to somebody, even in a very insignificant way.”
Jared will never forget the moment he took those first few steps, waving his diploma overhead in triumph, with his friend from Iowa in the audience cheering him on.
“I feel like I can do anything now,” he said.
“Never give up hope.”