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Al Batt's Sentenced To Life

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Al Batt's Sentenced To Life
"It is easy to sit up and take notice. What is difficult is getting up and taking action." This quote by Al Batt helps us to realize that when life gets too comfortable, it's easy to get complacent and notice things in the world that are wrong and need to be changed, but people don't always do things about it. When life faces you with horrific tragedies and circumstances this is what causes you to wake up and make a difference. This is something that the citizens of Aplington-Parkersburg learned the hard way.
Parkersburg has had their share of tragedies in this last decade. In May of 2008, the town of 1900 residents was hit with a tornado that demolished a portion of the town and killed eight in the region and destroyed 220 homes and leveled …show more content…
Joan knows though that it’s not too late to help other families. She wants others to ask more questions about mental illness and to never give up hope that things can get better. She is raising awareness and hoping to help other families cope with mental illness by sharing her tragic story through her book, Sentenced to Life: Mental Illness, Tragedy, and Transformation. “I want people to understand this is my story of how I saw and lived through this ordeal,” Joan Becker said. “I can be open and if that helps other people trying to deal with this illness, families or individuals themselves, then it is so worth putting ourselves out there” (Kasparie 1). Becker plans to give any proceeds to organizations that help people with mental health …show more content…
Aplington-Parkersburg knows this first hand. They have been dealt their fair share of tragedies and have in Thomas's own words, when talking about the tornadoes that struck their community. “It's amazing,” he said, “how you bond together when you face adversity in your life” (Jenkins 4). That is just what these two families and this community did, to try to find meaning in these tragedies. They got up and stood together to take action to try to make sense of these tragedies and in the end helped others along the way and that’s just what Ed Thomas would have
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