Bowling

Today I volunteered at the Special Olympics here in Worcester. I was stationed at the bowling alley with about 8 other UMassers. We showed up at 8:30 and left at 1:30. We were there to make sure that the kids that were bowling matched the name on the screen and to cheer them on. The girls were first. They were timid but excited. I think that we were with the kids in lanes that had “less” of a disability than other kids and they were all about middle school age. The girls were bowling ~120 and the boys were ~160 which is pretty unbelievable. And on top of all that, they were super happy kids… you could tell that it wasn’t just the excitement of the day but that they really had some pretty sweet dispositions. It was grand.

I really wondered what kind of a difference we were making. It seemed that parent’s and “friends” of these kids were more in the back seat and cheering compared to us who showed up for a day and then left as soon as it was over to come back to the lab to get a few things done. No doubt that they needed people to watch the bowlers, but there were probably twice as many volunteers as needed. People would say “thanks for volunteering” and I found myself thinking “Are you serious? You do this every day!” It’s easy to show up to a charity event, it’s another to life your life for others as so many do.