Original subtitles

to come to our home and tell my home.

[APPLAUSE]

Charlie Kirk was scheduled to speak at my husband's

upcoming memorial.

Instead, I am here speaking at Charlie's memorial.

It means a lot to share my story.

Almost 12 years ago, I met this bright young man filled

with optimism about his plan to reach young people.

I was so impressed that I invited him to come to our

home and tell my husband and me more about his

organization.

That young man, of course, was Charlie Kirk and his

organization was Turning Point USA.

[APPLAUSE]

Charlie told us how he wanted to start two chapters in

North Florida.

When asked how much money it would take, he told us he

thought it would take about $50,000.

Not knowing anything about this young man, except that

he sounded impressive, we told him that if he could raise

the first half, we would give him the remaining $25,000.

Two days later, Charlie called to say that he had raised

the money.

[APPLAUSE]

He was not in his hometown.

He was not even in his home state.

He was 20 years old, and yet he met our challenge.

I laughed and I told him, I said, well, Charlie, I guess

we owe you a check.

That was Charlie Kirk's first challenge grant.

After that initial grant, we followed suit with multiple

challenge grants, each one larger than the previous,

eventually growing into the millions.

In the early days, Charlie felt like a son to me.

More recently, I was the one looking up to him.

Charlie never disappointed.

He met every challenge with optimism and grit.

Today, I feel like Charlie is challenging us.

Will we meet his challenge to fight for freedom, for family,

for faith?

More importantly, will we do this the way that Charlie did,

with a heart that loves God?

Before you answer that question, I would like to

share something else with you.

Shortly before I met Charlie, I had become very discouraged

about the atmosphere in our country.

I even suggested to my husband that maybe

we should stop trying.

It seemed that the money and time we were giving to freedom

causes did not seem to be making a difference.

Bill asked me to read an article by Larry Reed.

The essence of the article said this.

If we truly believed in freedom, we must never stop

trying to preserve it.

We had a moral obligation to fight for freedom.

And as long as there is a breath in our bodies, we

must fight.

By encountering Charlie, we met a true freedom fighter.

Today, there is no doubt that Charlie Kirk fought for

freedom with the last breath in his body.

Thank you, Charlie Kirk.

And thank you to everyone who will not stop fighting.

To all who will meet the challenge Charlie gave us.

Thank you.