Every year in April, my sorority, Omega Phi Alpha, along with hundreds of other people and organizations, takes a walk around a track for about 10 hours. We camp out on the cold, wet grass at all hours of night listening to our iPods, watching movies on our laptops and playing very loud games of Catchphrase and Scrabble. In between the camping madness, we walk.
We walk for hours while trying to warm our cold hands and wake up our tired minds. So why do we make this long trip around the Sun Angel Stadium track every year? We do it to fight cancer.
Relay for Life has been helping raise money for cancer research since before I even knew what cancer was. And year after year, it has become a staple in the lives of ASU students.
Now I must admit the twang of annoyance that comes at the thought of having to go sit and walk at Sun Angel on a Friday night. I grumbled to my mom and friends who were not required by any organization to commit to this particular community service. But as I sat there on my sleeping bag deciding which episode of "The Office" to watch, I could hear all the different stories of survivors and people my own age who have lost their parents or friends to cancer. These stories reminded me why we do community service, and why the students of ASU feel the unending need to give back to a world that has given us so much.
Over the past semester, I have talked about the many issues that plague our nation and world; however, today I wanted to take a different approach.
Seeing the hundreds of people out on that track Friday night made me realize how much love still exists in our world. Our media here at school tends to focus on the negative aspects of the world that we have grown up in and the world we will someday run. Because of this, I think we tend to forget about all the good things that our country has to offer. So, as I walked on that track and heard stories of all the people affected by cancer and how much Relay has helped them through those difficult times, I realized that people still care about what happens to each other.
It is very true that people are capable of great evil, but we are also capable of incredible good. The wonderful people at Relay For Life are just a few of the people in this world that have changed it for the better, and I was privileged to be in their company.
We may at times grumble and complain about doing community service or wonder how much it really matters outside of our resume, but doing even the smallest amount of good in this world can help it change.
Today may be a good day to perform your own little bit of world repair and see how far it goes.
Sarah can be reached by e-mail at: sarah.maschoff@asu.edu.
