Feeling Good...Doing Good....

As I talk to more and more of my friends and acquaintances, it seems like most people spent their 20s getting to know themselves, making mistakes and building a life. The 30s come and after getting comfortable with who they are, they decide to look at the bigger picture and ask some questions which have answers other than "me, me, me".

I know this has happened to me. It started slowly, feeling jealous of a friend who had a job at a non-profit. Sure the pay sucked I told her, but you are DOING something for the good of people. I started thinking more about it and entertained finding a non profit job myself. Alas, I love where I work too much. I committed to giving blood every 56 days. That wasn't enough though and the nagging feeling became more pronounced and I realized I needed to do SOMETHING, I just didn't know what.

Recently, the "what" or more accurately, the "whats" fell into my lap. I now have three non profits that I am helping in various different ways. I feel so strongly about each of these organizations so I think it is going to be easy for me to volunteer hours or time or whatever they need. I am sure at some point over the next year I am going to hit up everyone I know to help out in some way. I am warning you now! When I do hit you up, I want you to know a little about what each of these organizations do and why I care.

Tri It For Life - When I signed up for my first triathlon I had no idea how it would change my life. I am lazy so looked for a training group and stumbled upon this south Charlotte organization. It is a group of women who have one goal: to inspire women to move. As the year and training progressed, I fell in love with the group, the ideals and many of the women who started it. There are old women, fat women, skinny women, young women and all of them are triathletes. A few nights before the actual triathlon the group hosted a celebration dinner. I sat and looked around the room at the 200 or so women that were there. I bet you a million dollars you wouldn't have ever said that some of them were in shape to be a triathlete. Hell, I bet you wouldn't have looked at ME and thought I could do it. But I did. They did. We all did. And that is the beauty of this group. So many people think you have to be skinny or in shape to try, but you don't. You just need to TRY. I would much rather be fat and fit. Every person who signed up for this group finished the triathlon. Every single one. Crossing the finish line was a feeling I never thought I would experience. Yes, training in a group is helpful, but the day of the race, it is all about you and your ability to power on when it gets hard. Crossing the finish line is a perfect blend of self empowerment and group gratitude. I want every woman I know to have that for herself, to make the time for herself, to love herself enough to invest in herself. Yes, you can do it. You just need to try.

This year the women's only Ramblin Rose will take place in Rock Hill in July and Huntersville in September. Tri IT For Life is fortunate to be the charity of choice for the July event. That means that money raised will directly go to Tri It. It also means that we need to provide a certain amount of volunteers to help defray costs. I am the Volunteer Coordinator for the event and will probably be asking you to spend a few hours on a Sunday morning helping the event. We will need people helping cheer people on, mark race numbers, hand out water and other small jobs that make a huge difference to people running the race. It only takes a few hours but I can personally tell you that I had an extra spring in my step when I heard some random person yell out my race number. So take out a pen....write down Amy - July 11- 7A-11AM!


St. Jude Children's Research Hospital - I had always heard of St. Jude growing up and since my brother had a childhood cancer, it had a special place in my heart. One of the stations I work for has done a yearly radiothon for St. Jude and I was lucky enough to be flown to Memphis for a tour of the hospital. Wow. This place is utterly amazing. I was worried in the beginning how I would react, that the place would be sad and depressing but it is far from that. There are so many little touches that make this a special haven. There aren't any wheelchairs. Kids are brought from place to place in wagons. All the reception areas are kid height so kids can check themselves in and talk directly to the nurses. The walls are brightly colored and each room has a different theme. The entire place is centered around kids. There are some things that people won't tell you about this place and those are the things that I think really make it different. You may have heard about the cafeteria. When Danny Thomas founded the hospital it was the height of race issues in the country. He wanted to make sure that everyone ate together regardless of color, creed or class. There is still one big cafeteria and all the doctors, researchers, patients and parents eat there. One researcher told me it is the greatest thing. Imagine having a bad day at work and being able to go look at EXACTLY the reason why you are there working. Talk about a sense of purpose! The cafeteria is open 24 hours a day. This may not seem like a huge deal, but imagine you are a kid going through chemo and you have no appetite. Suddenly at 3AM you wake up craving mashed potatoes, pancakes and a hot dog. At St. Jude, you will get it. They know that eating is important but is sometimes really hard, so if you are craving it, you get it. The people at St. Jude want to make sure that each child has as normal a childhood experience as possible. This means that they have proms, dances, movie nights, social, etc. There are teachers there that work individually with patients to teach them the curriculum that their school is actually using so when the child goes back to school, they haven't missed a lesson. That means that the teachers need to be certified to teach in every state since the kids come from every state. It also means that one teacher might have 5 kids of the same age, all with completely different work to be done.

So you don't have kids or your kids have grown up so you don't think you will ever have to face childhood cancer? The other amazing thing about this place is the Research Center part of the name. When you walk through the hospital you will come to this huge atrium that opens up to research labs. There are researchers from literally every nation. Obviously, when a child is fighting cancer his or her body is weak and a common cold could be deadly. So along with research on the latest cancer protocols, there is research being done on all other infectious diseases including the flu and AIDS. I had the chance to talk with a man who was studying avian flu and ways to fight that. And because of the money that St. Jude raises, the research is all free for anyone to use.

I literally could go on for hours about why you should send every cent you have to St. Jude, but instead of doing that I will ask you to trust me that this place is amazing and needs help. I am working with the St. Jude Charlotte office to create a Charlotte St. Jude Heroes program where we recruit people to run races and raise money for St. Jude. I will be running a half marathon in November as a St. Jude Hero. In the next few months I will have several opportunities for you to help. Contributions are always welcome and I will have a dedicated website where you can give directly to St. Jude, but I will also have special jewelry for sale and have a few raffle items as well. Running is one of the most daunting tasks I have ever committed myself to but I know that being a St. Jude Hero will keep me running when I want to quit.

For Your Cure - I blogged about Stephen Fogg,the friend of a friend who was battling cancer at 26. A bunch of people came up with the idea to sell those bracelets like the LiveStrong ones, except these are orange and say "FU Cancer". All proceeds went to Stephen, aka Foggy. Well to show you how awesome Foggy is, he is taking all that money and starting a charity. There are a lot of support groups for kids with cancer and older people with cancer, but there isn't a lot out there specifically for adults 18-34. Foggy is changing that. His main objective is to is to provide patients of cancer or cancer related treatments an outlet to occupy their mind and body through the gift of creative expression. We are starting this truly from the ground up. Foggy is doing the paperwork for 501C3 status and I am using my anal retentive skills to help organize. Shelia is working on a station event along with the Checkers to help raise more money and exposure.

We had our first meeting to brainstorm what we wanted to do and where we wanted to grow. I walked out feeling 100 pounds lighter. Yes...this is what it is about. It might have taken me 35 years to get here, but I think it all happened as it should have. I needed those other years of me, me, me to develop skills, contacts, ideas and focus. This is exactly where I need to be right now, helping others. I'm doing good and it feels really good.