Acacia Woodley is a tiny girl with a big dream. The 15 year old Florida girl was born without complete arms and was bullied in school. Woodley says another girl in her school bullied her, not because of her disability but because of her positive outlook. “She was a popular girl and she was popular because people were afraid to go against her. She told everyone she wouldn’t be their friend if they were friends with me,” Woodley told WFDL news. “It was a really hard situation and I would go home and not want to go back to school.” Woodley says she eventutally reached out to the girl in an effort to resolve the matter. “I invited her over to my house and discovered that she was going through a really hard time at home and so I was able to talk to her and be a person for her to vent to,” Woodley said. Woodley developed what she calls the Friendship bench that allows children to go to a place when they are in need of a friend. “I created a place for people to go whenever they were having a rough time. Basically the idea is if a child is having a rough day they can sit on the Friendship bench and it signals to others they need a friend to talk to.” Woodley brought her message to Fond du lac this week, speaking to other students about treating each other with kindness. “You can always talk to somebody, you are not alone and one of the things I try to teach kids is that they are amazing and they can do anything if they put their mind to it.” Fond du Lac Silica for Your Home owner Tom Schneider heard Woodley speak at a recent buying seminar and was so impressed that he purchased four Friendship benches for Fond du Lac schools and paid for the plane tickets to fly Acacia and her mother to Fond du lac.
