On the hot, sunny day of Saturday April 18^th, many volunteers gathered on the football field of Paint Branch High School to raise awareness and money for the Leukemia and Lymphoma society.

Coming in, all of the volunteers were encouraged to buy a T-shirt to represent the cause and express what the purpose of the day truly meant. All volunteers then had to sign in and get name tags. Not only was everyone able to meet new people, but also everyone learned to work together as a unit.

Throughout the day, many volunteers worked at different jobs to run the event. From setting up different activities, such as a three-legged race to a tic-tac-toe board to a mini soccer game or to the famous corn-hole game on the football field, activities were everywhere.  More decorative activities such as blowing, tying and setting up balloons also filled volunteers’ time. When some were out of breath from blowing up balloons others would switch jobs to help give them a break.

After working for about an hour, setting up pizza and water, everyone had a chance to take a break and rejuvenate. After everyone took a break, they all went to their assigned stations. Jobs varied from working to register people to merchandise sales to carnival games to prizes at games.

The merchandise station sold t-shirts for $10, four LED finger lights for $1, five glow-in- the-dark bracelets for $1, and three balloons for $1.

Everyone was assigned different merchandise to sell, and everyone had to look after the money box. After working from 3:00 in the afternoon to begin set-up by 6:30PM people began to show up.

People bought T-shirts as they first came in the door and, later on in the night, other purchased merchandise, people played the carnival games, chilled on the party bus, and watched a movie or just walked around.

Around 8:00PM, all of the volunteers and people who came to the event were called together for the walk. The mission was to walk around the football field for 30 minutes. Music played and everyone was in a cheery mood as they walked around the field until 8:30PM. The time seemed to fly by so fast because everyone didn’t mind walking since it was for a great cause.

After the walk, everyone gathered around the dj and sat in the field to listen and watch the performances.  Two performances took place, one by Helen K, who attends Montgomery Blair High School, and Eleanor Kwendu, a Paint Branch 10^th grader. Also, a dance performance by the event coordinator, Nehal Shah, a senior at Paint Branch High School, entertained the crowd.

Nehal Shah said, “My favorite part of the event was the three legged races. It was hilarious seeing the contestants trying to run.” Shah begin setting this event up in the summer of last year and gathered all of the volunteers together to help make the event possible.

After the performances, the DJ began playing songs such as the “Cupid Shuffle” and “Cha Cha Slide” which everyone joined. Then everyone formed a circle and took turns dancing in the middle. Everyone laughed and had a good time.

After people began to leave, the volunteers stayed behind to clean up.

Being surrounded by people of all ages willing to come out, help with and support a great cause is inspiring for many people and hopefully will allow many to follow the example for other events.