On October 27th, 2012 the unimaginable happened to our family: we lost our little boy, Richard Edwin-Ehmer Specht (Rees) to a drowning in our backyard pond. In the wake of that loss my wife Samantha and I started a foundation called ReesSpecht Life. The foundation, and my school presentations, represent our commitment to make the world a better place in his name.  We can all work together and do the small things that make a big difference.

Our primary goal is to remind people, especially school aged children, the importance of community, compassion and respect.  Initially our way of accomplishing this was through “ReesSpecht Life Cards”. We hand out the cards every time we perform an act of kindness. The hope is that each person in turn will then also carry out an act of kindness and a chain reaction will ensue. To this date over 280,000 ReesSpecht Life cards have been distributed worldwide.  We believe we can make this world a better place, one Rees’ Piece at a time. To order cards click here.

In 2014 I published a Children’s book titled: “A Little Rees Specht Cultivates Kindess”. The book follows the adventures of a farmer named Rees Specht who discovers that kindness is like a seed that can only grow if it is cultivated in others.  All proceeds from sales of the book goes to the ReesSpecht Life Foundation.

In 2015 I left behind his science teaching career to pursue my goal of teaching children the importance of spreading the seeds of kindness. As a former classroom teacher, I was all too aware of the need for programs that promote character education.

I never intended to make a career out of sharing our story, but after reluctantly speaking at the High School I graduated from two years ago, I started to get more and more requests to speak and share our story.  Being a teacher it was almost impossible to schedule assemblies that didn’t conflict with my work.  In 2015 I decided to take a leap of faith and left my teaching position to speak full time.  Before I knew it I was getting requests to speak all over, and I have shared our story with 40 schools this year alone.  I truly believe my little boy set me on this mission to make the world a better place and I will take the presentation anywhere and everywhere to help demonstrate the power that kindness has to change the world…