During this semester I had time to volunteer at multiple sites. I started with the Big Ten Cross Country Meet. Also, I participated in the Dunn Sport and Wellness Scholars Day of Service.

The Big Ten Cross Country Meet was hosted by Ohio State (first time in 10 years!) at the Ohio State Golf Club in Upper Arlington on Sunday November 3rd. I arrived to the meet at 7:10am to prepare and set up final preparations for the women’s and men’s races. Sean Jones (jones.5946@osu.edu) is the head athletic trainer for the mens/womens track and cross country teams; he allowed me to help out. My responsibility was to work the finish line. I had to keep finished runners out of the way of incoming runners so there isn’t a big pileup of athletes at the end of the race. I also had to provide medical supervision and provide water/Gatorade to finished runners. This was an amazing experience because it taught me so much about Cross Country meets. I can utilize this added knowledge during clinicals for Athletic Training. I ended up leaving at 2:30pm after we cleaned everything up and made sure each team was on their way home. In totality, I volunteered for 7 hours and 20 minutes.

(Myself before the XC Meet)

The DSWS day of service took place at Centennial High School and on High Street on Saturday November 2nd. I arrived to start planting trees at 8:30 in the morning. During the DSWS DAY of Service, I helped plant trees at Centennial High School, and I cleaned up trash on High Street with my fellow scholars. At the high school, there was no trees at all, but when we were done, it was basically turned into a forest. On High Street, there was so much trash everywhere down the street. It took a while to clean everything up, but in the end it looked a million times better. I left at 3:30pm with a total of 5 volunteering hours that day. Volunteering left me appreciative to all the workers and janitors in the world who have to clean up after stupid people everyday.

(Dunn Sport and Wellness Scholars cleaning up High Street)

Because of service learning, I am now more educated on what goes on behind the scenes of a cross country meet, and I am even more appreciative to the universities janitors. From now on I will try to reduce the mess I leave behind wherever I go. I am more grateful to the workers who have to deal with rude people everyday.