Marine Corps Reserve Officer Joey Fay, representing the Travis Manion Foundation, helps celebrate the lives of America’s fallen heros by giving presentations at schools.

By doing this, Fayencourages students and staff to take the lead in helping others.

A 1998 Parkland High School graduate, Fay recently visited Springhouse Middle School to spread his message.

“The Travis Manion Foundation is a non-profit organization dedicated to empowering families of the fallen,” Fay said. “And, the fallen are our military personnel and first responders who have been killed in the line of duty, combat or in training.

“Those families that have dealt with that loss often look for an outlet to remember, honor and cherish the memory of that person who they loss and what they stood for.”

Fay shares the meaning of the foundation, and encourages character development through presentations at middle and elementary schools and some colleges.

His main message is: “If not me, then who?”

Fay was honored last November in Philadelphia by the Philadelphia Business Journal as a recipient of the 2017 Veteran of Influence Award.

A U.S. Naval Academy graduate, he received his Master’s degree in Business Administration from Penn State.

A major in the USMC, Fay served in Fallujah during the Iraq War.

He currently works at CBRE and serves in the Marine Corps Reserves.

“Always relying on someone else to be taking that step forward is not what the veterans, first responders and police officers in the line of duty, who have given their lives, stood for,” he said. “They stood for doing it. Not waiting for someone else to.”

Fay initially gave a presentation to Springhouse Middle School students in September 2017.

He returned on Dec. 15, 2017, to honor the students and the school for raising money in honor of Parkland alumnus and fallen soldier, Matthew Koch.

Koch, 23, Army specialist in C Co., 70th Engineer Battalion, 3rd Brigade, 1st armor division, of West Henrietta, N.Y., died March 9, 2005, in an accident in Taji, Iraq.

The son of Diane L. (Fenstermaker) Worman of West Henrietta, and Dale B. Koch of Gilbert, Ariz., Koch was a 1999 graduate of Parkland High School and a member of Greenawalds United Church of Christ, South Whitehall.

Koch received the Meritorious Service Medal, Good Conduct Medal, Army Service Ribbon and medals for service in fight against terrorism. He was awarded the Bronze Star and Purple Heart after his death.

Springhouse students raised $2,000 in honor of Koch.

The money was recently distributed as gift cards in local stores as random acts of kindness.

Fay presented medals to the top three fundraising homerooms and an overall plaque to the school for his appreciation.

“It’s really impressive. I do a lot of these presentations and the schools don’t always accept the challenge to actually go out and serve and do something in response to the presentation,” he said. “This school did accept that challenge and they accepted it faster than at any school I ever presented.

“I presented in September and here I am in December getting ready to award them for going out and raising money and showing the ‘If not me, then who’ mentality.”