Pauline B. from Germany who is in Angela Holland’s Connecticut cluster, had the opportunity to volunteer at the 2016 New York City Marathon.
Here’s her story about that experience:
My best accomplishment in my year in America was definitely to volunteer at the New York City Marathon in November 2016. I met four incredibly nice young women and had such an awesome day there. We volunteered at one of the water stations on mile 17. It was our job to hand cups of water to all of the runners and motivate them, so they feel good and keep running. We started with putting out tables and filling water in all of the hundreds of cups. Then we waited almost an hour for the first runners, but after a while we could see the first place, a woman from Kenya. Everyone, who watched the race was screaming and cheering for her. I was so excited and overwhelmed by the reactions of the people. About 1 or 2 hours later all of the other, non qualified runners arrived at mile 17 and since this moment, we had a lot of work to do. Hundreds of people needed our help.
Everyone, who watched the race was screaming and cheering for her. I was so excited and overwhelmed by the reactions of the people. About 1 or 2 hours later all of the other, non-qualified runners arrived at mile 17 and since this moment, we had a lot of work to do. Hundreds of people needed our help.
We applauded and motivated them to keep going and most of them were so thankful for us. It was so amazing! Our whole team worked together and we were all helping each other. It was just such a great feeling to know, that everyone was happy in this moment. This day definitely changed something in my life, because first I know that I want to run the Marathon at least once in my life and second I experienced that we can reach every goal in our lives, if we all stay strong together.