Where R U?

February 11, 2012 · 0 comments

in Cleveland, Life Happenings, Running

This morning I was up bright an early to head downtown to the Cleveland State University Student Center to volunteer for the Junior League’s Where R U? Event.It was quite a snowy ride downtown today, but I made it safely, signed in, and started my job as a greeter! The event was co-sponsored by the Girl Scouts of North East Ohio and was targeted towards girls between the ages of 9 and 18. Unfortunately, the bad weather this morning kept a few participants at home, but it turned out to be a great event!

Winter finally decided to arrive this weekend!

The great thing about volunteering is how great you feel after the event! I was dreading having to wake up on a Saturday morning at a time that I would normally get up for work during the week, but on my drive home I couldn’t take the smile off of my face. Where R U? turned out to be a fantastic event!

Tropikana from 107.9 served as the official Emcee and did a great job engaging the girls in between speakers. Zone Cleveland was also there providing entertainment and an electronic graffiti photo wall. It was pretty cool!

There was a fantastic line up of speakers for the event. First up was a panel of speakers from different walks of life including:

• Lorraine Vega from Key Bank Foundation
• Terri Burgess Sandu (formerly of Hard Hatted Women) from Lorain County Community College
• AnneMarie Grassi from Open Doors Academy
• Stevani Rohde from the Department of Veterans Affairs

All of the speakers did a fantastic job, but I was particularly moved by Terri Burgess Sandu and her personal story. She started out as the daughter of a delivery truck driver, battled depression, and moved on to become the Executive Director of Hard Hatted Women. Now she is the Executive Director of Workforce Development and the Director of the Entrepreneurship Innovation Institute at LCCC.

The part of the day that I was looking forward to the most though was the Keynote Speaker, Liz Ferro, the founder of Girls with Sole. I think it would be fair to say I have a mini crush on her! She walked in, and being the best greeter I knew how to be I said “Hi, you must be Liz Ferro!” Luckily, she wasn’t put off by my excitement and we had a really nice chat about running, marathons, and triathlons. Girls with Sole has only been around for less than three years in the Cleveland area and has had such a huge impact. Liz is even in the process of publishing a book called “The Finish Line Feeling.”

She opened up her speech with having all of the girls stand up to do a shake out. It was fun and definitely increased the energy after lunch.

There were plenty of activities that the girls did at each of their tables during the day including participating in a dream wall and writing down things inside of a bubble that keep their bubble (life) full and then writing down things outside of the bubble that keep their bubble from getting to its full potential!

There were even little bottles of bubbles at each table for each person to blow as they were doing the activities.

Despite the awful weather this morning, I am so glad that I volunteered today. I realized today that the same feeling I get after I get a really good run in I can feel after I volunteer. Call it “Volunteer’s High” or “Runner’s High” the endorphins must all come from the same place.

I hope that I am able to volunteer this year with Girls with Sole. Although I know that I won’t be able to lead my own group given my 9 to 5 job, I hope that I can help out with the organization in other ways.

My plans for the rest of the day include basking in my “volunteer high” and getting ready to watch Michigan State trounce Ohio State in basketball tonight (hopefully)!

Have a great, snowy Saturday Cleveland.