Courage, to put it simply, is the ability to do something you fear. While fear can be felt in anything or anywhere, so can courage. We can be shown how to discover and cultivate courage in ourselves and others. A middle-school program known as Maxcourage aims to promote the understanding and appreciation of courage.

The program was inspired by Max Warburg, a Back Bay resident who faced one of the world’s most common and potentially deadly cancers.

Max was an active and imaginative young boy. He and his younger brother Fred would often go sailing with their father, which led the boys to dream of becoming real sailors. Max wished to own his own 420, a popular sailing dinghy, which he wanted to name, Take it to the Max.

One day, when riding his bike, Max fell, rupturing his spleen. At the hospital, doctors discovered that he had leukemia, a cancer that produces an overabundance of abnormal white blood cells. This made his body unable to adequately fight off infection.

His doctor explained to Max that there were roughly 6,000 other people in America who needed to find a suitable donor for a bone-marrow transplant, one of the treatments for curing leukemia, and the one needed for Max. Rather than focusing on the low odds of finding a donor, Max famously declared ““So, there are 6,000 others. Okay, I’ll be 6,000 plus one. I’ll be one of the lucky ones.” This inspired the name of his donor campaign “Max +6000.”

His health slowly began to decline as a donor for him was sought. Max was told he would not be able to play sports for six whole months. As a response, the ever-optimistic Max circled the date exactly six months from then, February 6, 1991. He was determined to make it to that day.

Max’s days were filled with hardship and sacrifice. Each day a donor was not found meant a greater risk of death.

On November 28, 1990, a perfectmatch donor was found. The transplant was a success, and he began his path to recovery. Because of the nature of his illness, Max had to recover in complete isolation, while his white blood cells slowly returned to normal.

Eventually, February 6 arrived, but Max was not well enough to play sports. Despite the success of the transplant, he had suddenly come down with a life-threatening fever. But even in his darkest hour, Max joked around in the hospital with Fred.

Then, a few weeks later, Max’s father motioned him to look out the window. Max looked down at a 420, his dream boat, with the phrase Take it to the Max on the mainsail. But Max passed away the next day, March 5, 1991, at the age of 12 with his family by his side.

The Maxcourage program, founded shortly after his death, by his parents has three parts.

The first is an overview of Max’s tragic but

inspiring story. The second involves reading about and discussing how everyone faces adversity, and how their responses can be powerful catalysts for change. The final stage is writing a “Courage Essay,” a 550-word personal narrative about how the students, or people they knew, were called to show courage.

Like Max’s optimism, the Maxcourage program shows no signs of slowing down. It continues to inspire middle-school students in more than 10 countries to show courage and not turn away from adversity, while teaching that anyone can leave a lasting positive mark, as did Max Warburg.