Softball is all about Community!

Eagles Softball is all about giving back to the community of Prescott. Every month we organize some form of community outreach event with our accountability partners, which is the teammate that we are accountable for the rest of the year. Accountable as in we make sure that both of us are always on time and if one of us is not going to make an event we will notify each other. At the beginning of the season, we created a list of events to accomplish throughout the school year. Some months contained two events in order for all of the accountability partners to have an event.

September: Shoelace Fundraiser for Pediatric Cancer

September: Wild West Mud Fest- Boys and Girls Club of Central Arizona

October: “The Spot”

November: Canned food drive

December: Toys For Tots

January: Help the Troops

February: Blanket Drive

March: Habitat for Humanity

April: Relay for life

softball blog 2As you can tell, our outreach events help others from a variety of ages. Some events are donations; however, others are interactive such as the Wild West Mud Run, the shoelace fundraiser for pediatric cancer and the most recent, creating care packages for troops.

What was my event? My accountability partner and I had the month of November. We figured with Thanksgiving being in November that we should have a canned food drive. We collaborated with Fry’s Drug and Food Store and had every teammate donate at least five cans of food. From our team alone we donated at least 100 cans of food. We also asked others if they wanted to donate and we delivered all of the cans to Fry’s.

What was my favorite event? There are two candidates for this. The first one was the Wild West Mud Fest sponsored by Crossfit Prescott, local radio stations, and the rest can be found here http://www.wildwestmudfest.com/read-me-1/. For the mud run, we were all required to ask for two $20 donations for our registration, and all money raised was donated to the Boys and Girls Club of Central Arizona. The reason why I enjoyed it so much is all the obstacles throughout the 5k run and we were helping others by participating in the event. The run started with a wall that we had to climb over and it was a bit difficult to do it alone so we helped each other up, over the wall, and a few feet from the wall was a two-foot pool of water and mud mixture. Most of the obstacles were outdoors, however the obstacles created by Crossfit Prescott were inside Tim’s Toyota Center. At the end of the run there was a mud obstacle with netting a foot or two above the ground and we had to crawl or military crawl (like I did) through the mud. By the end, all of my teammates and I were covered in mud from head to toe! After we completed the 5k obstacle course, we stayed until the end of the last wave to cheer people on at designated obstacles. It was a bit exhausting since we were there for five extra hours, but it was worth it since some people thanked us for supporting them through the obstacles.

My second favorite event is the most recent one, which was making care packages and writing holiday cards to the troops. This event was definitely one of my favorites because I know that there are soldiers who are not able to be home with their families for the holidays and anything they receive will make their day a little better. My teammates or the coordinators of the event asked to donate items such as ground coffee, cross word puzzles, books, packaged foods, and toiletries for men and women. We also used this website http://booksforsoldiers.com/ to gather books that soldiers requested.

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As shown in the picture, we had a large number of donations from all of the players and other students around campus. To make things a little more festive we filled up holiday bags with a few items we donated and holiday candies such as candy canes.

After we boxed everything up, we moved on to the cards. It was wonderful being able to write to the troops for the holidays and I made sure to thank them for everything they do for our country. By the end, we were able to ship 15 packages to the troops!

Our next events will include a blanket drive, Habitat for Humanity, and Relay for Life. So be on the lookout around campus with flyers if you would like to support any event!

 

I’m So Much More Than a Number at Riddle

Being a student at Embry-Riddle has made me realize that what I can achieve in the future is going to be great.

I knew that coming to a STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) and private school would differ from any other school, but I was unsure how it would be different. After the first week of classes, I realized what the difference was. The main difference was that everyone from admin to professors to staff care about the success of every student. I heard stories in high school from colleagues whom were in college about how they felt as if they were just a number since the university was so large. Here at Riddle I surprisingly enjoy the smaller student population since the classes are more interactive and I feel as if I am not just a number, but also a student who is striving to achieve similar goals as my colleagues.

I know that those who decided to attend here had a certain goal in mind whether it is for engineering or any of the other majors and it makes attending Riddle more enjoyable because fellow peers are going through the same journey together. The small student population indicates a tight-knit community throughout the university and in the close community there are numerous people that share the same love for aviation as I do. What I did not know is that quite a few people also share a common passion for robotics as do I.

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I look forward to more great things that will surprise me about being a student at Embry-Riddle!

Kaila Romero, Women’s Softball