While exam prep is in full swing and there is a lot on the career front that is top-of-mind for me, I want to take this blog space to tell you about a volunteer initiative that I am personally very proud. Thank you in advance for the opportunity to procrastinate from studying!
This week ends the first ever Month of Volunteerism, a student-led initiative with the goal to collectively volunteer an aggregate of 1,000 hours of service between November 14th and December 16th. Here are a few highlights from my experiences this past month.
This first picture goes out to some of my classmates that made it to So Others Might Eat (S.O.M.E.) at 6am on a Tuesday morning to help serve breakfast. This pic represents the flood of our internal Facebook group of pictures and a few notes of healthy competition. I bring this picture into this blog to impress upon you the degree of visibility and buzz this initiative has created on campus – something that is quite surprising to me given the high degree of academic rigor, club elections, and career prep work going on these weeks – and something that makes me proud to be a Hoya.
An out-of-the-ordinary “volunteer” initiative this month for me was growing my first mustache. No joke. I was part of a successful fundraiser that culminated with $27,272 in donations from the friends and family of 87 MBA students at Georgetown and contributed to the $108.6 million raised globally. The fundraiser, titled Movember, is a fundraiser for prostate cancer and other cancers that affect men. I can honestly say that it was fun sporting a mustache and more than worth it considering the successful outcome of the campaign. Sorry, no pic for this one – but you can search the Movember site if you are curious.
One of the volunteer events I led this past month was at Martha’s Table School Food Pantry. This nonprofit sets up “shop” twice at month at two elementary schools to distribute quality grocery items to families of students in that school. As you can guess, these are schools in disadvantaged neighborhoods in DC. My wife accompanied me and a few other school friends to participate in this excellent project. Below is a picture of the setup right before the families began their grocery shopping.
Now I do have to get back to the books. Have a great week!
