During the semester, I had two volunteer experiences. The first was with the Columbus Marathon on October 21, 2018. For the Marathon we had to get up pretty early which wasn’t a big problem. The main issue we had was that it was freezing that morning and the marathon took place in the morning which did not help at all. The work that we did wasn’t bad at all and they did provide us with breakfast and hot chocolate. All we did was put out cups and fill them with water. When the race time came around, all of the volunteers handed out cups to the runners which was actually pretty fun. All of the runners had their name on their card so we were able to cheer for them and encourage them throughout the race. All in all I enjoyed the experience at the Columbus Marathon and will for sure go to volunteer again in the future. (5 hours)
My second volunteer experience was the DSWS day of service. For the day of service I went to the Furniture Bank where I had one main task. A group of four of us scholars were tasked to take apart old wardrobes. These wardrobes would then be made into smaller pieces of furniture so that families could better benefit from them. At first this talk seemed really tedious and no one really enjoyed it but Abigail suggested that we try and make a game out of it and see how fast we could dismantle the wardrobes. The first timed one took us over 15 minutes and the final time on the last wardrobe was just over 5 minutes. This little competition helped keep our spirits up when we were doing work that wasn’t quite our favorite thing to do. This is something that I will keep in mind for the future when I volunteer. I also really liked the mission behind the Furniture Bank and I would not mind going back in the future. (5 hours)
For my second semester, I did my service hours at BuckeyeThon. I loved this experience. It was probably one of the most fun times I have had while at college. Knowing that we were doing something that was for a good cause and seeing the total amount we helped raise was incredible. A lot of what we did was raise money before hand which was kind of a struggle for me. I made a lot of social media posts where not many people donated, but I did get to the $250 so I could participate. The dancing was my favorite part. I usually don’t enjoy dancing, but being with all of my best friends made everything incredible fun. We did an incredible amount of silent disco, gaga-ball, and front row at the rave. All in all, I really do think I will do this all 4 years because of my incredible freshman year experience with BuckeyeThon. (12 hours)