Friday, February 17, 2012

Friday 17th February 2012…..an amazing young man!!

    • Nanaimo worker selected as the best Wal-Mart employee in Canada

Store greeter plans to walk again after baseball accident left him in a wheelchair

By Robert Barron, Daily News February 17, 2012

Tim Kerfoot of Nanaimo said he was shocked when he was chosen as the best Wal-Mart employee in Canada.

Kerfoot, who has been wheelchair bound since he had an accident while playing baseball 11 years ago, has been working as a greeter at Nanaimo's Wal-Mart for the past two years. He received his award at a ceremony in Toronto.

Ken Baird, Nanaimo store manager, said Kerfoot was chosen the best employee out of approximately 82,000 workers in more than 300 stores across the nation. He said it's the first time a Wal-Mart employee from Vancouver Island has won the annual honour.

"Tim is just a great person who has made a deep impression on his co-workers and the store's customers in his time here," Baird said.

"He's also deeply involved in the community and regularly volunteers at the New Hope homeless centre in downtown Nanaimo. We're so pleased that Tim has won this award."

Kerfoot, who also won the Shining Star Employee of the Year Award at Nanaimo's Wal-Mart last month, said it's been "quite the roller-coaster ride" since he learned he was not only nominated for Wal-Mart's top employee award in Canada, but was one of the 13 finalists who were flown to Toronto for the awards ceremony last week.

"I guess one of the main rea-sons why I won the award is because I really love people and I make sure I greet everyone who comes in to Wal-Mart with a smile and a hello," he said.

"I'm often the first person customers see when they come in the store and the last person they see on the way out and I see it as a huge responsibility to connect with them."

Kerfoot has come a long way since an unfortunate fall in a recreational baseball game in 2001 left him in a coma for many months.

He said when he came out of the coma, his speech was slurred, his memory was foggy and he ended up in a wheelchair.

Kerfoot said that he had symptoms similar to multiple sclerosis, but he was never diagnosed. "It's been a long road to recovery since then, but I've learned a lot about myself and those around me that I consider to be invaluable lessons," he said.

"I've made a lot of progress, but I still have a ways to go. I firmly believe that it's the hard times, not the easy times, that people go through that builds character, and I like to think that my experiences have made me a better person."

Kerfoot said, apart from his goal to walk again and climb Mount Benson, he hopes to continue his education and eventually either become a journalist or write and publish poetry books.

"The sky's the limit," he said

 

Thanks to my friend Bonny for sending this to me……In my other life years ago I worked at the high school this young man went to and strangely enough when I was home last summer I went into the Wal-Mart where he worked and I did not really remember him but when I walked in he said Hi Les…and he could tell that I did not really know him but I said Hi.  He turned to me and laughed and said you don’t remember me but I remember you from Dover bay school and then he said too funny I am the one with the brain injury but I remember you!!!!  I shook his hand and said he was truly a great guy.

So really happy to see him honored in this way!!!!

 

feel good story of the week!!

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