LeadForward Vol.1 No. 1

SPECIAL GUEST

Young Voices Big Impact! Kids Helping Kids Helping Kids!

How Coni Meyers Turned a Lifetime of Challenges into a Movement to Protect and Empower Children By Coni Meyers, LMC, CBLC, CDC

When I was just ten years old, I lay in a hospital bed at the Mayo Clinic, diagnosed with a rare kidney disease. The doctors told me I might not live past sixteen. But even then, something inside me refused to give up. That night— though I didn’t know it at the time—became the first of many Crystalline Moments in my life. Those flashes of clarity would go on to shape my purpose and my path. Now, at 76, I’m the founder of BePreparedBeReady.org and the heart behind the Kits4Kids Initiative, a program that’s helping children across the country feel safer, stronger, and more hopeful about their futures. A Life of Reinvention I grew up on a modest farm in Nebraska, went to a one-room schoolhouse, and spent much of my childhood in and out of hospitals. My early years were marked by fear, isolation, and a deep desire to prove I was “good enough” to survive.

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