Volunteer

In the last time, I wrote about cooking for oneself. Thus, I should write about the cafeteria or eating out, but today, I am going to talk about the volunteer activities that I did on November 3rd because I want to write about it before forgetting the details.

What is volunteer?

Probably there is no one who does not know the word ‘volunteer’.

The definition of volunteer is working for others or organizations without intending to receive money, and it is common in Japan, my home country, today.

It began at the medieval Britain hospital, where it founded to save the poor and the sick. Today, it is one of the American cultures.

My first volunteer

I knew the definition of volunteer that I wrote above to some degree, but I had never done the volunteer activities in my life.

I had recommended to do it a few times, but I resisted to work without receiving money.

Thus, I did not think of doing volunteer activities during my study abroad experience in the U.S.

However, I received one email about the volunteer for the New York City Marathon on November 3rd from the exchange program department of my university at the end of September.

Even though I had no volunteer experience in Japan, I reserved it without hesitation because I decided to challenge many kinds of activities in America. Hence, it became my first volunteer in my life.

What is NYC marathon?

Here, I explain briefly about the NYC marathon.

The vision of this marathon is “to build healthier lives and stronger communities through the transformative power of running”, and 460 million dollars have been totally donated since 2006 through charity.

The first competition was held in Central Park, Manhattan in 1970, and 127 participated in that event and 55 of them finished the race. However, after that, this event became bigger and bigger, and in 2019, about 53 thousand people ran 26.2 miles.

In 2020, it was held as a virtual marathon due to the pandemic of COVID-19, but in 2021, about 2.5 thousand runners completed the race even during the pandemic, which celebrated the 50th anniversary.

And this year, in 2024, more than 55 thousand people ran around NY supported by more than 2 million audience and 10 thousand volunteers. (reference:https://www.nyrr.org/about)

The biggest marathon in Japan is Tokyo marathon and its number of runners is 38 thousand, thus you can know how big this event is.

The race starts at Staten Island, which is located in the south of NYC, and the runners try to finish at the Central Park via Brooklyn, Queens, Bronx, and Manhattan.

Thus, in this race, the runners pass all the five boroughs of NYC, which means that they can enjoy a view of the biggest city in the world while running.

↑ This is the atmosphere of that marathon. There are much audience along the road.

What I did as a volunteer

I did volunteer at the 13th fluid station, which was located near the Greenpoint Avenue station between 11:30 a.m. and 3:00 p.m.

It is known that the length of marathon is 42.195 kilometers, and it is 26.2 miles, which is a U.S. length unit.

This number 13 means that the fluid station is 13 miles away from the start point. This means that is located almost the middle point of the marathon.

The NYC marathon offers volunteers activities focusing on the first aid, but I do not have any knowledge on that topic, thus I did a volunteer in the fluid station.

There are various choices of fluid station, thus NY citizens can choose their favorite one, but I cannot because I live in Stony Brook, which is about 2 hours away from the NYC.

Thus, I cannot work in the morning, and I chose the one at 11:30.

The job itself is very simple, which is to give drinks to the runners at the fluid station.

The drink is water and lemonade, and the lemonade needed to be made of water and its powder.

I participated in it with my friend, and we were the lemonade member.

The water member wore the white poncho and the lemonade member wore the orange one. Also, the color of cup was different, thus only a few runners confused it.

First, we put a lot of paper cups on the table, then caught lemonade from the bucket into the pitcher, and finally pour it into the cups.

We did this process with the two, and the other stood on the runners side and gave drinks to them.

From 11:30 to 2 p.m. for more than 3 hours, the fluid station was so crowded that we needed to repeat this process many times with taking a rest a few times.

I and my friend exchanged the role a few times, thus I could experience all the jobs but making lemonade.

After the shift, I threw away used paper cups and moved tables away from the road, thus I finished all the job at 3:30, which was 30 minutes later than the original plan.

What I felt through this activity

First of all, this volunteer activity was really interesting, and I was able to learn what the volunteer was through this job.

What is important in volunteers is a leader who teaches us the job contents or rules and supervises us, and all the leaders in this volunteer were very kind and taught me these points sincerely, thus it was overwhelmingly comfortable.

Also, I could get a badge and knit as a participation gift, which is a remainder for me, and they gave us some free snacks at the end of the activity.

What was surprising is that some locals got unused bottles of waters while we were cleaning up the fluid station after all the runners passed.

I can rarely see such a situation in Japan, so I again learned the huge income differences between the rich and the poor in the U.S.

Almost all the volunteers are the students because this volunteer activity does not have any time to sit down, which is probably hard for the elderly.

And during the marathon race, it takes a lot of time to just go to the opposite side of the road because we cannot cross the road due to the race, so please be careful.

This time, I tried to go to the destination in Brooklyn from the station in Queens via the bridge, but I could not because of the race, which forced me to take the subway again.

Also, after the volunteer, I hung out with my friends in NYC, but I was really tired because of that hard schedule. I do not think it is a good idea to make an appointment or hang out after the volunteer.

In November in NY, it is sometimes warm and sometimes cold, and on that day, it was cold, thus I needed to wear a lot.

However, the weather was fine, and it was a little warm thanks to the sun unless the sunlight was interfered by the building.

If it rains, it must be a tough race for runners and hard work for volunteers, hence I think that New York is a suitable place for a marathon because it only sometimes rains.

↑ This is a souvenir knit. I did not use it during the volunteer, but I can wear it in a daily life.

Today, I wrote about the volunteer activity. If you have a chance, I strongly recommend you to try it once. Thank you very much for reading.