CHUVALO DELIVERS THE ONE-TWO PUNCH ON DRUG ABUSE

The man, a Canadian legend, is as big as they come yet his message -- that
of a Canadian tragedy -- dwarfs his physical stature by comparison.

Former heavyweight boxer George Chuvalo has taken his crusade against
substance abuse continent-wide with his frequent visits to high schools to
give youngsters first hand knowledge of the devastating effects substance
abuse can have on them and their families.

Chuvalo, who reigned as Canadian Heavyweight Boxing Champion for 21 years,
was staggered on the ropes so to speak. Confined to his bed for one month
following the death of his wife who took her own life following the death
of a second son (Georgie Lee) to substance abuse, the champ now fights
back. Telling his tale to anyone who will listen and heed his warnings,
Chuvalo captivated an audience of Leaside High School students with his
tale of losing three sons and a wife to substance abuse April 22 as part of
the Empowered Student Partnership (ESP) assembly.

"You know drugs are wrong because if you had to make a decision for your
younger brother or sister, all you teenagers who are 16 and 17 years old,
you can't make those decisions for them. What would you get them into
drugs? Smoking? Drinking? What would you do? You know that's wrong,"
Chuvalo said following the assembly. "If you love and care for them, you
should love and care for yourselves. It's common sense. They know when they
see Dateline, Sixty Minutes or Forty-Eight Hours on television, they know
that those people are messing up. They learn by example so when they see it
so often they know.

"Even without me here, they know but it makes it easier when I detail some
of the things they don't see. I detail about puking their guts out,
crapping their pants or someone turning their back on common sense, it's an
insane life, it's absolutely insane nobody would ever choose it unless you
would figure they would have to be insane to do it."

ESP is a joint partnership between participating schools in the Toronto
District School Board, the Toronto Police Service, ProAction, Cops & Kids,
the Canadian Safe School Network and the City of Toronto. Each school must
set up a student committee with a staff supervisor (Mitch Curci at Leaside)
and then sends one committee member to monthly divisional meetings at their
local police divisions in order to help promote safe schools.

The committees then conducts a student survey to determine the needs of the
students and what issues they need to be most informed of. At Leaside the
result was substance or drug abuse, the students then looked through a list
of speakers and chose Chuvalo.

"We started in October and we've been running through a meeting every week
planning this main event in the school and we are running one outside of
the school. We are starting to promote a video to advertise against drugs
and a video to promote ESP itself," ESP committee member Kalyn Stephenson
said following the presentation.

"It was amazing because my parents have talked about him and I think his
story was really packed with emotion and I hope a lot of students will take
a lot from him. Every year I hope we get a new speaker in to promote the
fight against drugs.

"I can definitely tell you that it pulled a few heartstrings. It's an
emotional story. It touched everybody in a way. It can happen to anyone, I
can relate to that and see how a normal Ontario family can be torn apart by
drugs."