Inspiration Thursday

- non running related edition.

So you may (or may not) have noticed I kind of disappeared again last week. I wasn't even posting on IG all that much(pretty unlike me).

The reality is I did something really awesome on Tuesday and it kicked my little butt all the way to the weekend!

About a month ago, an email went out at work asking for volunteers to help with a playground build in a town about 2 hours away in Scranton, PA. Of course I volunteered!! It was a paid day out of the office to do something super awesome. Needless to say I got chosen and was so super-duper excited. Thanks to weird severe weather, it was rescheduled to Tuesday last week.

So how did building a playground inspire me?

I work for a medical assistance insurance company that provides medical and behavioral health coverage to low income or no income families across the state. This playground build was for people who live in public housing and fall into this category. A quick look around told me that this area was one of severe poverty. Not only that, but these children living there had nowhere to really play.. to just be kids. At one time there was a “playground” with at least swings available, but at some point the swing seats themselves were gone. A local organization, Friends of the Poor, tried hard for years to get swing seats back and never had any luck.

Because of my company had the awesome, irreplaceable experience of helping out as part of a crew to change the lives of these kids in a really big way.

Our ride

Just the start of it all.. We literally started with YELLOW POLES. We even unloaded the big trailer of all the parts ourselves.

This was our post for a good 2 hours I would say. That pile of mulch was a BEAST.

Tools of the mulching trade. 

Mulch chariots

 To see the faces of the kids as they realized what we were doing… to hear the words spoken out of their little mouths about how over the moon excited they were to have such a super awesome playground to go on… well that was inspiring to me and actually brings tears to my eyes still as I write this post. There is really nothing that compares to a playground full of excited kids who have somewhere new (and amazing) to play.

My fellow department member who kicked butt all day on the assembly crew

Isn't it AWESOME?!?!?

Trying to wait so patiently. They wanted to play SOOOOO bad. 

And off they went.

To see the smiles and joy on these kids' faces was all the reward we all really needed. My heart was touched so much and it made me so thankful for what I have and truly inspired me in so many ways. What a beautiful mission project and I was so proud to be part of this experience.

Do you regularly volunteer with any organizations?