The Glow Walk

On September 23 I got the opportunity to take part in a Greek Life sponsored event called the Glow Walk. The event itself, was a 5K walk around the track located behind the freshman housing, and for every lap completed students received glow sticks. The Delta Zeta sorority and Alpha Chi Rho fraternity were responsible for organizing the Glow Walk and making sure the proceeds to The New Jersey Hearing Aid Campaign and the American Cancer Society.

The event started at 8 o’clock in the evening, right outside big blue. Once inside the gate students and other participants could see the hundreds of glow sticks that were used to light up the track. I showed up a few minutes after 8 and the track was already filled with hundreds of participants waiting patiently to begin. After donating 5 dollars, my friends and I were given a glow stick and told that we could earn more by completing more laps. Not long after we arrived, the music started and so did the people on the track. I walked 8 laps with one or two friends while other participants jogged or walked, or in some cases even sprinted. I ended up with 9 glow sticks at the end of night like many other people but I also left with an abundance of happiness knowing that the money that I donated would help other people who were not yet, as happy as me.

While walking on the track, I only saw happy people. Whether people were running or walking they were all happy and singing or talking to their friends. There was even groups of people competing against each other for the most glow sticks.  Delta Zeta and Alpha Chi Rho did a fantastic job planning and coordinating the event and should be very proud of themselves for doing so. It was not only a great fundraiser, but a great way to meet new students. I look forward to participating next year and many years to come.

On September 17th I was able to take part in what was known as the “Get Involved Fair.” This event was put on the Office of Service Learning and The Office of Student Development to get more students involved in clubs and activities. The fair was mostly an all-day event where students like myself, could check out what clubs the school offered. I stopped in, by myself, on my way to class just to get a glimpse of what I might be interested in and like I had expected there were more than just a few that caught my attention.
Two clubs that really caught my attention and they were Gaming Club and Circle K. The first club is really just a club that I want to do for fun and basically just meet new people. I love to play video games so it would be really cool to hang out with people who like to do the same thing. However, Circle K really caught my attention while I was at one of the honors meetings. I don’t remember all of the details, but the events that the club members talked about blew my mind. At high school all of the volunteer work was minor and in most cases really didn’t do much. I could easily tell that this club could really help me make a difference in the community and would be fun at the same time. Also, everyone that I talked to at the tables dedicated to Circle K seemed friendly and happy to talk about anything that had to do with helping people.
Taking the time to go to this event was certainly important to me, because it helped me meet a great deal of people and feel more comfortable here at Stockton. Also, it opened my eyes to how much the school really offered even if I wasn’t interested in most of the clubs. The idea to get involved is so important at college because here, you have to make the most of every opportunity. I mainly chose clubs that I would want to be a part of and continually attending the meetings. Whether they were fun or not, I chose clubs that gave me purpose and made me happy and feel more involved at college. All in all, this event did just that and definitely got me involved.

The first Service Learning project that I had the pleasure in taking part of was the 11^th Annual Day of Service. The Day of Service is an event here at Stockton where students and volunteers from around the area can participate in various community services. I got the opportunity to help of the Club Water Watch in their goal to clean the campus grounds. The project consisted of just over 30 people, 11 of which were from my dorm. The group was split up into small teams to efficiently and effective clean the campus grounds. Almost every member that participated in the event was happy to help and peppy while doing so. Our task was to clean up liter around the campus center. Some groups did the freshman housing area and others did the academic building. Despite the fact that it was 85 degrees and humid, when everyone in my group was done we took one last glance around what we cleaned and smiled.

The most important thing about what we did was the reflection. During the reflection we discussed ways to prevent the amount of garbage that we found. The most common piece of trash were cigarette butts. The gazeboes are the designated area for smoking and there are just the right amount of gazeboes around the school that if you have to smoke you don’t have to walk too far to do so. Adding more gazeboes is the not the solution because most of the cigarettes butts were found around the gazeboes. Our group came up with multiple solutions one of them being to have bigger areas to put the used cigarette butts. Most of the butts are surrounding the trash cans so this should drastically reduce the amount of liter.

I can honestly say that my overall experience was fun, interactive, and most importantly rewarding. The feeling that you get when you have accomplished something meaningful is like no other. Thanks to my friends that helped clean the school I had a blast and never even thought of the cleaning we were doing as a chore. Helping Water Watch made me appreciate our campus and made me more grateful towards other people who clean our school on a daily basis. I plan on helping out Water Watch in the near future and trying to make an even bigger difference.