Walk For Hope Gratitude & Admiration
Here’s some emails that went out last night. Post your own inspirations as comments, please.
Mighty Super Heroes,
Can I just simply utter: WOW.
Yet another profoundly beautiful Walk For Hope has come & gone…yet it doesn’t seem to leave you. It lingers on & plays itself out over & over again in the mind’s playbook. There are so many countless images & selfless acts of goodness by thoughtful volunteers that seem to masque itself into the overall event of the day.
Like….
Rahul thoughtfully passing out fruit while a sea of cars waited in line to enter the park…
Mumta selflessly & literally taking the “shirt off her back” to give it to a walker who desperately wanted one….
Cindy’s home-baked nutritious & fast-disappearing cookies feeding the crew at 6 AM….
The attendant at the park’s gate wishing us a cheery “Good Morning!” at those wee hours…
Christine ceaselessly hustling around making sure everyone was well taken care of….
Melisa kindly heading out on a coffee run for those of us who just needed that morning jolt…
Karuna giving someone a massage after tirelessly serving & coordinating all day, needing one of her own…
Tim heading over to help another vendor setup her booth before completing his own…
Since my perspective is so limited in scope, I cannot even begin to list all the other acts of kindness & unforgettable moments that occurred. So, please share & add to this above list to help us all see it from your viewpoint & forgive me in advance for inadvertently leaving anyone out.
Spread the love!
S
Sana staying at the random act of kindness activity booth and blessing everyone with her joy.
Jamie running to hug people from the free hugs station at the end and bringing a smile to all our faces.
Sukh doing the rocky run toward the long stream of cars waiting to get into the park after he discovered another main entrance for us to go to.
Cindy letting us use her beautiful tye-dyed rags to clean the tables and reminding us to save our gloves in order to save the planet.
Raju speaking so lovingly to everyone who came up to the Manav Sadhna booth about the strength and family that we call MS.
Vivek radiating such love to the crowd while speaking on the stage.
Tim calling me to tell us where Sonali is in order to bring her coffee…and such great directions. We found her within minutes in the sea of faces.
Bharti and Aarti—the perfect angels to bless us with food at the food area and what incredibly special food. I felt so graced and thankful for it.
Supun..lifting, helping, always on the move and even running with Sukh and Vivek partway throught the walk.
Sujana…patiently, effortlessly helping with the beautiful “be” tshirts.
Madhavi…so present and magnificent on assignment at the registration table.
And so much more!!!
Ray (Marina High student) directing walkers to the correct line; as though he’d done this 100 times before.
Kelley, random walker, rejoicing at Activity Station #3 because, looking at the canvass, she genuinely felt like she could now envision a better world.
Trusha, glowing while raving about the quotes that “her kids” had made for the walk path.
Sukh, at the gas station, trying to hi-five the circle of volunteers while Karuna tsk-tsk’ed him because she wasn’t yet finished :)
Sonali, selflessly sharing her coffee with me . . . and letting me share it with others.
Sukh’s mother, just before Sukh was about to speak to walkers, telling my grandfather, “I love to listen to Sukh talk.”
My grandfather, today, telling everybody that he saw how unbelievably inspired he was to see young people make so much movement.
40 cars on Studebaker road at 5 AM on a Saturday . . . just . . . being the cause.
There were 3 or 4 Rajs that were being helpful in a lot of places
Christine Be and Cindy was part of everything.
Jayson, Andrew and Omar playing their fusion music was pretty cool especially after 2 of them just got back from traveling with Adnan.
Whoever did the The Artwork at the “path of silence” left a big impression on me.
Meeting the amazing Matt and seeing the mindblowing posters he made for us on such short notice
The quote team, literally whistling while they worked
Noticing Christine, and many others, suddenly in different attire after they had given their BE t-shirts to others
Johnny D taking pictures of the stunning site before we entered the park, dodging the few cars that were out at that hour and not soldiering into the park
Satya sweeping the grounds before set-up
Watching tears well up in Sonali’s eyes when a certain friend of ours arrived
Hearing walkers talk about the huggers, and how they were overjoyed to experience them
Dilshan singlehandedly building the massive frame for activity station 3
Seeing the back of my pick up very suddenly empty because of the amazing Rahul, Supun, and cone team… then seeing it very suddenly (and artistically!) refilled
And the throng of new faces that were happy to show up and help at an event they’d never heard of before..
amazing. y’all are just stupifyingly amazing.
My friend Sylvia and her boyfriend showing up at the gas station to help out @ 5am. Sylvia was beeming with enthusiasm and her boyfriend drove that same morning allll the way from San Diego! This was their first walk for Hope!
Johnny taking a picture of each quote along the walk path and calling me at 3:45am…I slept thru my alarm and if that call didn’t happen, I woulda been asleep until 8am I’m sure…his call helped me get to park @ 5am…yaaay! Johnny, sorry we didn’t get to carpool!
I missed meeting the certain friend. Bummer!!!
I am always newly touched by the sweetness and compassion everyone pours into each walk for hope! As the Beatles have sung: “Come together…right now!” That’s what we do!
Thoi very sweetly offering her “BE” shirt to Sri:)
how about Melisa for typing out all the forgiveness messaages from the tree?
Thank you, Melisa!!! Amazing to read all those notes of forgiveness…I was truly impacted by these words. Thank you.
Sooo many thanks to Hiromi for posting online to sooo many websites and helping sooo much with promotion of walk and sending out info to key clubs, universities, the works! And for others like Haleema, christine, sonali==doing the media contacts. OMG!! The promotion piece was sooo smooth this year. Yaaaay!
Thx Marcella 4 telling us about the Irvine global festival. It was awesome to promote the walk and talk with people at booths there :)