Skip to main content

The Power of Volunteering Your Time

I have learned so much about the importance and power of volunteering your time. In high school, I was a part of a couple community service clubs, but I never really put a ton of time into any of the community service events. My freshman year at TCU, I volunteered every week at Kinderfrogs on campus, and I had a blast working with kids with disabilities. I also joined the Pi Kappa Phi Fraternity which is when I found out about the Journey of Hope (JOH). JOH is a 64 day bike ride across the country which raises money and awareness for people with disabilities. I thought it was a perfect undertaking after volunteering at Kinderfrogs, so I signed up. I ended up raising over $7,000 through emailing my friends and family to participate in the event. My network of people made the journey across the United States possible, and I am extremely grateful for everyone that made it possible. 

During the Journey, I cycled over 4,000 miles from San Francisco to Washington D.C.. We averaged about 75-80 miles on the bike each day, and we stayed on gym floors and in the basement of churches. Along with the cycling, we had friendship visits at almost every stop. These friendship visits involved us participating in everything from dance parties to wheelchair basketball with some exceptional individuals. Everyone we visited had disabilities, but they showed more joy and compassion than anyone I have ever met. I had countless memorable experiences along the way that I will cherish for the rest of my life. It was the 32nd year of the ride, and some of the communities treated the day we road through as a holiday. I'll never forget that someone came up to me and said that the day we were there was better than Christmas. It was really special to see the impact we had on the communities that we passed through, but it was even cooler to see how the communities and people impacted all the guys on the ride for the better. The Journey was the first time that I felt like I was participating in something bigger than myself. All in all, I learned that if you put your time into something, you can really make a difference, and you can learn so much about yourself as well. 

Comments

  1. williams.dan76February 5, 2020 at 10:06 AM

    I am so pleased to read about your JOH experiences--and so impressed. I am an outdoors person and a cycler, so I can imagine the grind of 75-80 miles a day. Good for you, and great that it was so meaningful for so many others along the way. Thanks for describing your experiences. I think your learning experiences were probably worth a handful of classroom courses.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Training is key

This is another blog about a learning experience I had on my bike ride last summer. The bike ride is demanding and tough on the human body given that you ride on average 75 miles a day. That average is a little misleading considering some days you ride up to 125 miles a day with over 10,000 feet of elevation gain. The ride started on June 1st, but the sign up date was at least 6 months earlier. Some guys even signed up a year in advance. That being said, we all had 6 months to a year to train for this demanding task. The Ability Experience even hired professional trainers to help us get ready for the journey. They set up different exercises for us to do and held webinars every Sunday. These exercises varied from riding 15 miles on an indoor bike to doing 3 sets of 15 squats on a squat rack. We even had to track our workouts through an app. We would have to go on the app start our workout, record our heart rate, calories burned, then stop the workout when we were finished. If we didn...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Limerick

I learned how to write a limerick last class, and I really enjoyed it. Here is one I made: We all have to hop on zoom We wish we were just in the room School is winding down Yet nobody wears a frown We hope this isn't our doom Her are some of my favorites I found online: There was a small boy from Quebec Who was buried in snow to his neck When they said, 'Are you friz?' He Replied, 'Yes, I is- But we don't call this cold in Quebec God's plan made a hopeful beginning But man Spoiled his chances by sinning We trust that the story Will end in God's glory But at present the other side's winning I found these entertaining, and I have even found myself looking for limericks in songs that I listen to. This was a fun activity and it was even cool to use the zoom capabilities to break off into small groups.
1 comment
Read more

Take COVID seriously

Arguably, I think the most important thing I've learned the last couple months is to take COVID 19 seriously. At the start of the quarantine, a lot of younger people thought they were invincible and were still hanging out with each other. By doing this, they were endangering their own lives and the lives of the older generation. I am thankful I headed the warnings of my parents and social distanced when I was recommended to do so. I would never forgive myself if I ended up coming home with the virus and gave it to one of my family members. I obviously spent a lot of time with my family since I went to class online, so I tried to do my part in keeping us safe and healthy. I think even just learning to wash my hands correctly went along way in taking COVID seriously. Previously, I would go out to the store or some other public location and come back without even washing my hands. If you do that now, you might have the virus on your hands and you could infect yourself or someone els...
Post a Comment
Read more