(upbeat music) - Hi, I'm your host Shelly Irwin.

On today's Community Connection, let's get you inspired.

We all face challenges and obstacles yet when faced perhaps daily, how do we overcome?

To share their inspirations, welcome this round table virtual discussion.

Let's do the mic checks.

Do the hello.

Hello to you, Jocelyn Dettloff.

Jocelyn, hello to you.

- Hello, Shelly.

- Elizabeth, now do we call you Speed-Fanco?

- No, speed was just my maiden name, I put that on Facebook so people could find me.

- I think we're gonna call it.

I think we're gonna call you Speed because of where your goals are.

Cati Currier, you are an inspiration.

Hi, to you, Cati.

- Thank you, hi, thanks for having me.

- Hi, you're welcome.

And then there's Johnny Agar, TV star beyond your wildest dreams, good day to you Johnny.

- Well, I don't know about that, Shelly, but it's good to be with you and I'm gonna be a star because I'm on your show.

So, thank you very much for having me.

- That's not a bad answer.

Obviously we'll get to the questions of why you are sharing your story nationally.

Let's start with obviously some self introductions on why I may have asked you to join this show of Overcoming Obstacles.

Jocelyn, we'll begin with you, please.

- Oh, I was afraid you would start with me, but yes I'm Jocelyn Dettloff and 25 years ago I was sledding down a sand dune in Namibia, Africa and I flew off the board into the bottom of a dune and I broke my back and am now a paraplegic.

I graduated from the University of Michigan and I had my college education before my accident but I've developed a career in fundraising and worked for the Mary Free Bed Foundation, play tennis and I feel kind of the oddball here.

Everybody else is a road racer, but have a tennis player here.

So, I just try to live my life as "Normally as possible" and more to come on that.

- Thank you for that.

Would you talk a little bit about you Elizabeth and your journey.

Why you should be sharing your story?

- Well, my name is Elizabeth Fanco.

I am a mother of eight.

My children range in age from my youngest will be nine-years-old tomorrow.

My oldest is 23.

We have a farm out in Caledonia.

I think the challenge, the reason you asked me to be here is to talk about kind of my health journey for the past year.

I have been, had been, past tense, obese or morbidly obese since I was in high school.

And just this past year finally was able to make some huge headway in that, conquer some pretty big goals and ended up losing about 120 pounds in the process over the past year.

- Thank you to that, more on that to come.

Johnny Agar, what's your cliff note?

- I was born with cerebral palsy.

I was born prematurely at 29 weeks.

Doctors told my parents.

I could never, that I may never walk or talk or do a lot of the things that sometimes people take for granted and my family always have been huge into sports and sports was kind of a way that I understood how I needed to live my life and that it was important for me to work hard every day to achieve what I wanted and it wasn't gonna be always easy, but as long as I persevered, like a lot of the athletes that I watch I could do anything that I achieved that or anything that I wanted to that's what they always taught me.

And so my dad saw how much I love sports.

He wanted to participate in races with me and Team Agar was born.

So, it's been a wonderful journey, we've been able to do a lot of cool things, but I'm really, really inspired to be able to be with people like yourself who motivate me every day to be better and understand what I can do as long as I work hard enough to achieve it, so.

- Yes, thank you for that.

We are surrounded by inspiration.

So that's why this is awesome.

All right, Cati, maybe I've saved the best for the last.

Tell me about you.

- Oh, thanks.

I'm Cati, I'm 30, I'm a Christian.

I am totally blind.

I was diagnosed.

Oh, and I was diagnosed with OCD last year.

And I like Johnny was a preemie.

I was born at 26 weeks.

I do have a twin brother in heaven and we were, he was born.

His lungs were not fully developed.

My eyes were not fully developed.

We were both on life support, feeding tubes, the whole deal.

And life has not been easy.

It's been really difficult.

But since I joined Team Triumph in 2016, I've met a lot of awesome people, including yourself and Johnny and it's made life a little bit easier, although I still have difficult things that I have to work through, so.

- Yes, thank you for that, common theme exercise is important to all of us, so, obviously, physically, mentally, socially, and more.

What was, if I may ask this question of you all and then we'll jump around with some more of your inspirations.

Perhaps your earliest memory of a personal achievement.

And we know that achievement can be a tiny achievement or it can be the big dream on its way, Jocelyn.

- Well, thinking back, again, I was 26 when I acquired my spinal cord injury but thinking about this and I think learning how to ride a bike was my first memory of a personal achievement.

Of course I needed help, because I remember my friend's dad like running, with me, until he let go.

And then I was riding on my own.

So, just that personal, oh my gosh, I'm doing it.

And then, I did it.

Wow, this is really fun.

So yeah, learning how to ride a bike.

And I don't know if I was probably around five or six at that time.

- Nice, and let me move to Elizabeth, somewhat of a two part question, again, your earliest memory of an achievement and when did you know it was time to move into this weight loss journey?

- Well, my earliest memory of personal achievement I was trying to nail one down.

And one thing I noticed is they're all academic achievements.

All of my memories of achievements, nothing had to do with anything physical activity wise, everything was an academic honor or an academic achievement or something related to school or academics.

And that was a big deal in my house growing up.

And I was never athletic.

My four brothers are and still are, but I was not.

And so I really prided myself on my academic achievements.

In terms of knowing that it was time to move into the weight loss and health journey, the weight loss is always something that I wanted but assumed it was never going to happen.

I had tried many, many things over the past well, decades really.

And I would, each of my pregnancies was extremely difficult.

I had severe hyperemesis with all of my kids.

So essentially I would be sick from, for conception to birth with all of them.

I would lose 40 to 60 pounds with each pregnancy.

And that's the only way that I ever lost weight, was during my pregnancies.

And then as soon as the baby was born I would put it all back on but there wasn't really a, it's time, it was more that I finally connected with a person who could help make it happen through the Mary Free Bed Sports Performance Lab because I had tried everything on my own, but it wasn't until I met someone who had the expertise to make sure that I wasn't spinning my wheels anymore that things really started to change.

- Thank you for sharing that you reached out.

Appreciate that.

Johnny, take us back to your earliest memory.

- So, I was about six or seven-years-old.

I was going, finishing my day at the Conductive Learning Center walking or kind of going out of school at the Conductive Learning Center.

And I took two steps in my walker by myself.

And it was just this I'll never forget it.

My mom cried and it was just this overwhelming sense of I did it myself and I'll never forget it.

It took me years of hard work and therapy to get there, but to give you a sense of how serious this accomplishment was, my family told me that if I took two steps in my walker, one for each foot, that they would take me to Disney World.

So, we went to Disney World and several years later I had gotten to do the Disney Marathon and I walked the finish line of the Disney Marathon.

It was a really, really cool full circle.

Kind of bring it back to that accomplishment.

It was just really, really cool.

And I'll never forget it.

And that was a springboard for me to say, okay I can accomplish anything as long as I work hard enough and it doesn't matter how long it takes me.

It just matters that I take it one step at a time, so.

- Thank you for that, Johnny.

Cati, what's your memory?

- So, I have a couple and one of them was, I went to a Sports Camp for the Blind years ago and at the end of the week or weekend or whatever it was, I don't remember how long it was exactly, but they gave us all a medal, which was kind of cool.

And I actually still have it it's over on my bookcase and the other one that I was just thinking of was all my years, I'm a singer, I was in choir in middle school and high school.

And from 8th grade to 12th grade, we went to actually I think we did it in 7th grade too, but I'm not quite sure.

Anyway, we went to these choir festivals and the whole, and if we got a certain rating, we had the option of purchasing a medal from that festival.

And I actually do still have all of my choir medals too, which is really cool, so.

- Great, thank you, Cati.

Just a question now maybe for a couple of you, if I may, and I usually leave these bigger questions toward the end, but I'll go with you Elizabeth.

Someone says to you, how do you keep going?

What keeps you waking up every morning knowing that there might be a workout a choice of a healthier food or not?

What is it that inspires you to meet your goal?

- I have a couple inspirations.

The first is the reason why I run and why I started running in the first place and that's Team World Vision.

I run at, I'm a captain for Team World Vision here locally in Grand Rapids, and Team World Vision is a number one non-government provider of clean water in the world.

I started running, my very first race ever was a half marathon with Team World Vision in 2018 with two of my kids who felt passionate about raising money for clean water.

And so I know every time I'm moving my feet, whether it's in training or in a race, it's inspiring people to donate towards our fundraiser.

And that means that somebody else who doesn't have access to clean water is gonna be getting access to clean water.

So I'm moving my feet so someone else doesn't have to.

So on those days that I don't wanna get up outta bed, I don't wanna go run early in the morning when it's dark outside.

I don't wanna go run in the snow when it's five degrees outside.

I know that I'm moving my feet so that someone else doesn't have to.

- The snow is going to go away soon, standby.

Let me go back to you, Cati.

Yes, Cati, what keeps you going?

What keeps you signing up for the next race?

- So I'll try to make it as brief as I can.

I'm part of a group called I Run 4 and they match, so the one I guess branch of the group that I'm a part of is called, I Run 4 Remembrance.

And it's for folks who have lost family members due to illness, tragedy or whatever.

And so I have a buddy through that group, her name is Marge and obvious, and she's the person that has passed away and is in heaven and her daughter and I keep in contact through Facebook.

The other branch of the group that I'm a part of is called, I Run 4 Siblings and these kids are the siblings of folks with special needs.

And so they are the brother or sister of the folks with special needs.

And the siblings of these folks with special needs can often feel pushed aside or left out because their brother or sister with special needs takes up a lot of their parents' time.

And so, for me, I matched in that group with a young man by the name of Eric.

And so I know that every time I'm exercising or whatever, or racing or anything like that, I'm doing it for him because it's something special for him.

And it's something that I'm doing for him.

Another quick couple reasons I have started to follow, well, in 2013, I started following a little girl on Facebook by the name of Lexi.

And she is now 19.

She has brain cancer, neurofibromatosis type 1 is totally blind, just like me.

She has short term memory loss and has a whole bunch of other medical problems.

And she is unfortunately unable to do races and exercise and all that kind of thing.

So every time that I race, or I exercise I know that I'm doing it for her.

And another just quick brief, I met a little boy in 2019.

I was at a race with Team Triumph and I met this little boy named Luke and he and I have become very close friends.

He had surgery at the end of last year and I started dedicating all my races and exercises to him as well.

So, those are my reasons for keeping going.

- Thank you, Cati, again, inspirational.

Jocelyn law, let me turn the attention to accessibility and whether we go into pet peeves or how is the community helping persons in chairs those with extra challenges make life as normal as possible?

What are you experiencing?

- As with anything it's depends on where you go, newer areas, you're not going to run into many issues, but especially in the culture of diversity, equity and inclusion, the inclusivity part, something can be accessible but it might not necessarily be inclusive.

And an example of that would be, okay, you come into a building and to get upstairs yeah, they have stairs, but the elevator is like way down the hall and to the left and nowhere near where the stairs are.

So things like that can be a little divisive, especially encountering situations where you might be with people that you might not know very well.

And it can be an awkward, oh, you come to the stairs.

Oh, we'll meet you upstairs.

And they go upstairs and I have to go down the hall and to the left to take the elevator up.

Areas of Grand Rapid is pretty good.

But when you travel and whatnot you never know what to expect and going to older kind of cool areas, yeah, not gonna be so accessible, but there's a lot of light coming for, or well, put on diversity, equity and inclusion.

And anybody who has any sort of a fire inspection done for a building, I wish that there was an accessibility stamp of approval that a building would have to get.

- Gotcha, thank you for sharing that.

Taking notes as we do.

Johnny, I guess a two part question for you, how can the community continue to support you?

And you need to tell us a little bit about your book.

- Yeah, I'm just really, I wrote a book with my mom called "The Impossible Mile: "The Power in Living Life One Step at a Time."

And it was really brought about because I had so many people supporting me and just wanting to know more about how I conquer life, how I go through life every day.

And I was so grateful for the amount of people that have reached out to me that said, I was an inspiration to them because in reality, the inspiration comes right back to me when people say that, and it helps to keep me going.

So, I look at it as my mission now.

And it's really been inspirational for me not to just to race, but to walk in my walker.

In 2013, I completed the last mile of a 5K and I've walked every last mile of our races since.

So it's really given me an opportunity to show people what you can achieve as long as you put your mind to it.

And that's really what the community has taught me and my Team Triumph as well, really just being around those people has really showed me that my only limit is myself.

So, it's been a wonderful thing, and you can find more about the book at johnnyagar.com/book.

And my website is JohnnyAgar.com.

I have a lot of cool stuff on there.

You can find out more about us.

- Yes, cool guy, thank you for that.

We are down to my final question for each of you with four minutes left.

What's still the dream, Elizabeth?

- Well, the dream is keep racing, adding triathlons this year.

I did my first tri last year but adding more Tri's this year I hope to qualify to go to nationals which is a huge goal that I'm working hard towards.

But beyond that, my dream is actually and I've been talking to some local race organizations about this.

In the next few years I'd like to get a local organization going to support people in triathlons.

There's so many couch to 5K programs but there really is an not a couch to triathlon program.

And I am mentoring a group of women this year through their first triathlons, but I'd like to expand that.

I'd like to get something bigger in place where we can say, "Hey, it's not as daunting "as the word sounds."

And support people from getting off that couch to getting across their first finish line through training and helping them with equipment, getting them connected with a mentor, just getting them across that finish line for the first time and helping people who never considered themselves to be athletes, which was me for the first 40 years of my life, helping them realize that they can do it.

It's not impossible.

And you just really need the right support in order to make that finish line happen.

So that's my dream.

That's my goal for the next few years is to hopefully get an organization like that kicked off in the Grand Rapids area.

- Wonderful, guaranteed an interview.

Jocelyn, what do you leave us with?

- Let's focusing on doing a little bit more motivational speaking.

Was kind of getting, going with that a little bit before the pandemic hit and then everything pretty much stopped.

So, sharing with people things that I've learned about how to deal with obstacles, deal with... A mounded dirt changed my life by causing my accident and everybody has their version of a mound.

And part of perseverance and never giving up is part of powering through something.

- Nice, what's the name of your book?

- "It Rained in the Desert."

And it's kind of following on Johnny's footsteps there, it is available on amazon.com and yeah, "It Rained in the Desert."

- Yes, thank you for you.

Cati, we're down to a minute.

What do you close us with?

- My dream and goal is to travel and do more races in different states.

I had my first taste of that when I went to Louisiana with Shelly in 2020 and did the Louisiana Half Marathon, I'm hopefully going to DC to do the Marine Corps Marathon this year with Ainsley's Angels.

And my goal is to travel and do more races in different states in the next few years.

- Looks like we'll have to hook up for that.

You bet, I'll take you all.

We'll all go for a road trip.

Everyone, thank you for your inspiration.

You've overcome your challenge and the world is open for you to continue succeeding in what you do.

Thank you for being here.

- Thank you.

- And of course-- - Thank you.

- Thank you for watching and being inspired, take care.

(upbeat music) - [Narrator] If your organization would like to be considered for a Community Connection segment, or you have an event you would like to be added to our community calendar, email your information to, irwinsh@gvsu.edu (upbeat music)