Volunteering for "March for Babies"

My family is supposed to be on vacation right now but our plans were postponed due to a major mistake on my part (PSA: always check your passport expiration date). We are reframing and focusing on the opportunities we have this week now that we are unexpectedly at home.  My friend Amy was organizing a cheer station for this morning's March For Babies 5k and we were happy to have the opportunity to join them.  One of my goals for this year was to volunteer for an event, so this had the added bonus of checking that box for me.

I saw how much work goes on behind the scenes, especially when there is last-minute fallout. Amy was organizing cheer station #2, but got the word this morning that the entire volunteer group for cheer station #1 pulled out and wasn't coming. Can you imagine?! Amy rerouted a few of us to the empty cheer station. When we got there, it looked like this:

Cheer station #1 - in need of cheer!

We had a table and chairs, a trash bin, box with table cloth & miscellaneous items, lots of water, and a porta-potty.  Amy, Sally, and Lynn brought bubbles, signs, water dishes for dogs, leis, pinwheels, and some noisemakers. We got busy setting everything up.

Lynn and Sally put out water and bubbles

Freddy takes charge of water for the dogs

Josh sets up the music while
Freddy carries buckets of bubbles

 

All ready to go!

Lynn and Sally got ready with their signs and Freddy was poised to hand out bubbles. Josh and I took on water duty. I also sent a text to Rick to let him know we could use some extra hands and bug spray, and Rick headed over to help us out.

Cheerleader Lynn

Whoops, are they backwards?

That's better!

Ready to hand out bubbles

The first few folks started to trickle by and many of them were running and not looking for water or bubbles. Soon, however, there were lots of people coming through and we handed out water and bubbles as fast as we could. There were so many families and teams, many of them honoring children. It was inspirational and I was amazed at how fast the time flew by. We ran out of water and bubbles which was a bummer. We started cheering extra loudly to help make up for it. The race organizer brought us more water as soon as he could. And then suddenly the "sweep" walker came through and it was all over. We broke everything down in less than ten minutes. Freddy, Rick, and I headed home while Josh, Lynn, and Sally went off to help at cheer station #2. 

I was grateful to have the opportunity to help others and it helped to take my mind off of my vacation mishap. Win-win, and fun to boot!

Lynn, me, Sally, Josh, & Freddy (Rick took the picture)