After working 8 hours at the warehouse, we came back to Hope Village for a hour then headed back out to Minot State University to help with the relay which went from 6pm-6am! It was quite the event...
We got there and helped set up a few things, then it was really slow (work wise) for a while. My team was there along with Ceder 6; we helped moved chairs/tabels where/when needed, take down inflateables, and keep an eye on the candels.
The event started with the introduction of the event to the relay teams, some speakers, then the initial lap was done solely by survivors...it was a beautiful sight. Truly inspiring. The next lap was done by the caretakers, the love and compassion was almost tangible in the atmosphere. The relay start and throughout the night there was music and side things such as zumba, hip hop dancing, bingo, raffles, silent auctions, and other various games.
It was really nice to be there, but I must admit being up for 24 hours a totally new thing to me, I went INSANE! We didn't have constant work, just minor things between sit up and break down..so we were able to partake in activities and walking, I had several phases of sleepy-awake-borderline death-extremely hype-calm...it was interesting..one example was when zumba started we all were sitting at our table annoyed by the dancing people and how we couldn't dance (we're all very uncordinated) then a half hour later we're all up dancing with each other and running around like psychos...pretty sure we were all delierious. Another portion of the night was me laying on the bleachers face down, falling off the first seat onto the sub-bleacher which is meant to be a foot rest, then onto the asphalt, only to do the YMCA dance when the song came on while laying on the ground...I was a pitiful sight! haha When we were working it wasn't bad though, it was really fun. I got to light the luminaries that spelled out HOPE. It was really nice. The woman working with us was so thankful and gave us goodies! I got a key chain, a draw string bag, and a lot of free food :)
I was truly inspired by the event and happy I was able to partake in it! I also got 12 hours of ISP work which boosted me up to 64.5 hours! Getting closer and closer to my 100 hour goal :)
being up 24 hours really allowed the team to show how insane we really are haha...it was one of the most memorable nights thus far! Loved every minute of it though!
Only two more weeks left here in Minot until I go back to Vinton...looking forward to a break but I will truely miss Minot. It's such a nice city with lovely people...it may be in the middle of no where but it's worth a visit. The people here are magnificent - one guy here helped us when we moved a lady out of her house, he was volunteering after school; then we saw him at a cook out we went to, then we saw him somewhere else, then at relay for life! He's just one example of how involved the the people of the community are and how hard they truely work around here...it's really encouraging to see someone put so much of their time into the larger picture.
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