Montrose Student Wins State Speech Contest

Aine Ford of Hopkinton and a sophomore at the Montrose School in Medfield won the State Finals of the Massachusetts Lions Youth Speech Contest.

The finals were held on April 30th in Mansfield.

The contest, which began in November, featured students from across Massachusetts who had to write a 5-8 minute speech in response to the prompt "In what ways has social media changed society?"

Aine, who cut a Florida vacation short in February to compete in the fourth round of the competition, titled her speech "What Are You Worth?" She talked about some of the dangerous pitfalls of social media use, including live webcasts of teen suicides, dangerous pranks/competitions, and the ability to buy followers. The following was in her speech:

“People are so much more than a snapshot of one instant in time put into the digital ether for people to like or dislike, to retweet or favorite. Ask yourself, what are you worth? We are so much more than the likes on a picture of chocolate cake. We are not the acne on our face, or the hair in between our eyebrows. We are not a number on a screen, or a statistic. We are more than what other people think of us. We are how we dance when we are alone in our room. We are the hugs we give to our best friend. We do not need to conform to impossible standards. They are impossible for a reason.”

Photo of Kate Hill (Montrose School) and Steve Small (Medfield Lions) with Aine Ford (center) courtesy of Medfield Lions.