This past weekend I had the pleasure of volunteering with BASS, a student run organization in Smith-Steeb that coordinates events every week sometimes multiple in a week for the residents to take part in. Over the weekend however, they planned a weekend for Sibs and Kids weekend where siblings of current Ohio State students enjoyed various fun activities hosted by the University, on Saturday March 6th. The event that BASS put on was a miniature carnival with various inflatable games from Super Games. It was truly something special to get to see how excited all of the young children were to be outside on such a beautiful day at a college campus. There was never a time that seemed to go slow nor a frown in sight. Everyone there including the parents were having a wonderful time and some even joined in a few of the games. Seeing everyone at the event with such high spirits was heart warming because around this time of year especially things can start to get dreary as everyone crams for finals. Though it was fun seeing all of the excitement, I also volunteered for a few hours. While at the event I rotated between two shifts, first working the snack table, and second the prizes. Throughout the duration of the event I was in charge of making snow cones and popcorn bags as if it were a real carnival with carnival type foods. As for helping out with the prizes, I went around and encouraged everyone at the event including volunteers, to put enter their names into a random raffle. There were 25 gift cards being raffled off and the chances of winning were pretty high! One thing that I noticed while at the event was that the people seemed happier when they were just running around outside and playing on the inflatable games than they did waiting to hear if they won a prize. I found that really interesting because nowadays it feels as if the world is constantly becoming more greedy; but these children showed me that the possibility of winning a gift card wasn’t nearly as fun as playing with dogs and socializing with everyone around you.
Volunteering with BASS for Sibs and Kids weekend reminded me when I volunteered for YWCA through my business fraternity, Alpha Kappa Psi. Through AKPsi we coordinated a similar miniature carnival for the children. At that carnival we didn’t have the big inflatable games or gift cards, instead we had fish toss games, basketball, face painting, and various other activities. Though we did have raffle tickets for some of the activities at this carnival also, one thing that both carnivals had in common was the fact that the children were happier just playing the games and hanging out with one another than they were waiting to see what prizes there were. I’m not sure if that’s because they didn’t like the prizes being offered or because they were simply just more excited to be present in the moment; but either way, both were amazing volunteer opportunities that showed me how much more important it is to be with those around you than it is to seek out materialistic pleasures.