Make-a-Wish 24 Hour Event
So, this past weekend, we had a charity event for the Make-A-Wish foundation of Belgium. It's an annual event that has been held here for the past five years in order to raise money for the foundation. If you don't know what Make-A-Wish does, they grant 'final' wishes to sick and dying children, usually those that will never live to adulthood.
Well, the past two years, I've taken part in the event, and this year, I co-organized the team from the health clinic I worked at. Here's how it works, every team has at least one member on the track walking or running for a solid 24-hours. While there isn't any prizes for the team that comes in first place, some teams do complete for the top spot. Any person who wishes to join a team pays a 10 Euro due, receives a t-shirt, and then it's up to the team captain (i.e. me) to make sure that your team always has someone going. Also, there are various events around the area for kids to do, along with food vendors, all of the profits go back to the Make-A-Wish foundation.
Well, starting Friday morning at 5:45, we went to the field to start assembling the tent. And, it was a massive 20' x 30' tent (about 6.5m x 10m). Everything is going smoothly until we figure out that the rental company gave up the wrong pieces for the corners, and therefore, it was impossible to get corner legs attached to the roof of the tent. Well, after some clever engineering, and LOTS of tape, we finally get the whole thing in the air after about six hours. In the meanwhile, we started to set up the sleeping tent only to find out there are no stakes to keep the tent in the ground. So, it's off to look for supplies, and in the end, we just rented a couple for camping tents and borrowed the stakes from that.
Well, around 3 PM on Friday, the event finally started, and the walkers and runners took off en masse. However, at the same time, the nasty weather we were praying to avoid rolls in with some strong winds. Have you ever seen a big, metal tent take off... we did. As our heavy tent started to fly into the air, moving a couple meter and knocking down everything in it's path. To make matters worse, the tape that was holding it together started to tear. Well, we fixed it up, and someone ran off to find some massive tent stakes to keep it in place, as we repeated the process FIVE times before the wind finally calmed down enough to breathe easily.
Around midnight, my co-captain started to get sick, so I sent her off to bed to get some rest. She wanted me to wake her up for her hour long shift, but since she wasn't feeling well, I decided to walk for the straight two hours, an hour of which holding up our unit's flag. By the time this two-hour walking sessions started, I already had a fair amount of alcohol in me, so I decided to call up someone to kill a little bit of the time. If you've ever heard the fursuiting is a great cure for being drunk, so is speed walking. By the time I finished, I was completely sober. So, I kicked up my feet for an hour before getting at it again, accumlated a total of 38 laps (~15 km). By then, it was almost 4 AM on Saturday, and I was exhausted from the walking/running and lack of sleep. Someone was nice enough to take my last 30 minutes of walking, so I woke up my co-captain and got to sleep by 6 AM.
Well, 9 AM rolls around, and I'm in a tent with the sun shining and kids laughing and screaming. Needless to say, it wasn't easy to stay asleep, but I sure tired for a couple of hours. Eventually I crawled out of the tent, and started about taking down what we didn't need anymore, working to get out of there as soon as possible. The event ended on 3 PM Saturday, and we had the tent completely down and packed away by 4 PM. Time to head home, get some real food, and quickly fall asleep.
While I don't have the exactly total numbers, last year the event raised 30,000 Euro, and this year we surely beat that number. All teams completed a total of over 20,000 laps (~8,000 km), and all-in-all it was a great event that I will miss doing next year.
This is the time I get to do my friendly shove. If you have the ability, money, or just energy to help out a charity, I besiege you to do it. Go online or look locally and find a charity that you think is doing a good job, and help support them. You don't need a large group of people, or a huge planned event to help, just giving some support, money, or even helping to raise awareness for a worthy cause is enough. You'll get a warm, fuzzy feeling inside, everytime you think about it.
Well, the past two years, I've taken part in the event, and this year, I co-organized the team from the health clinic I worked at. Here's how it works, every team has at least one member on the track walking or running for a solid 24-hours. While there isn't any prizes for the team that comes in first place, some teams do complete for the top spot. Any person who wishes to join a team pays a 10 Euro due, receives a t-shirt, and then it's up to the team captain (i.e. me) to make sure that your team always has someone going. Also, there are various events around the area for kids to do, along with food vendors, all of the profits go back to the Make-A-Wish foundation.
Well, starting Friday morning at 5:45, we went to the field to start assembling the tent. And, it was a massive 20' x 30' tent (about 6.5m x 10m). Everything is going smoothly until we figure out that the rental company gave up the wrong pieces for the corners, and therefore, it was impossible to get corner legs attached to the roof of the tent. Well, after some clever engineering, and LOTS of tape, we finally get the whole thing in the air after about six hours. In the meanwhile, we started to set up the sleeping tent only to find out there are no stakes to keep the tent in the ground. So, it's off to look for supplies, and in the end, we just rented a couple for camping tents and borrowed the stakes from that.
Well, around 3 PM on Friday, the event finally started, and the walkers and runners took off en masse. However, at the same time, the nasty weather we were praying to avoid rolls in with some strong winds. Have you ever seen a big, metal tent take off... we did. As our heavy tent started to fly into the air, moving a couple meter and knocking down everything in it's path. To make matters worse, the tape that was holding it together started to tear. Well, we fixed it up, and someone ran off to find some massive tent stakes to keep it in place, as we repeated the process FIVE times before the wind finally calmed down enough to breathe easily.
Around midnight, my co-captain started to get sick, so I sent her off to bed to get some rest. She wanted me to wake her up for her hour long shift, but since she wasn't feeling well, I decided to walk for the straight two hours, an hour of which holding up our unit's flag. By the time this two-hour walking sessions started, I already had a fair amount of alcohol in me, so I decided to call up someone to kill a little bit of the time. If you've ever heard the fursuiting is a great cure for being drunk, so is speed walking. By the time I finished, I was completely sober. So, I kicked up my feet for an hour before getting at it again, accumlated a total of 38 laps (~15 km). By then, it was almost 4 AM on Saturday, and I was exhausted from the walking/running and lack of sleep. Someone was nice enough to take my last 30 minutes of walking, so I woke up my co-captain and got to sleep by 6 AM.
Well, 9 AM rolls around, and I'm in a tent with the sun shining and kids laughing and screaming. Needless to say, it wasn't easy to stay asleep, but I sure tired for a couple of hours. Eventually I crawled out of the tent, and started about taking down what we didn't need anymore, working to get out of there as soon as possible. The event ended on 3 PM Saturday, and we had the tent completely down and packed away by 4 PM. Time to head home, get some real food, and quickly fall asleep.
While I don't have the exactly total numbers, last year the event raised 30,000 Euro, and this year we surely beat that number. All teams completed a total of over 20,000 laps (~8,000 km), and all-in-all it was a great event that I will miss doing next year.
This is the time I get to do my friendly shove. If you have the ability, money, or just energy to help out a charity, I besiege you to do it. Go online or look locally and find a charity that you think is doing a good job, and help support them. You don't need a large group of people, or a huge planned event to help, just giving some support, money, or even helping to raise awareness for a worthy cause is enough. You'll get a warm, fuzzy feeling inside, everytime you think about it.