January came very quick, through the holidays we were still learning to set the tempo and maintain communication with one another while balancing our social, academic, family and athletic lives. However, we were committed to delivering against our objective of one event a month. Again, we found ourselves with a very tight deadline to deliver against our goal, committed to the date with about a week to find volunteers & transportation...we knew we'd find a way. We found an amazing opportunity to support a greater cause with a Los Angeles based organization to paint inspirational quotes, historical figures and bring much needed spirit to an underserved high school on Martin Luther Kings Birthday. Would we be able to get our friends to wake up at 7am on their day off? Will we be able to pull this off?
3 days after the announcement, our parent advisor had committed to 20 volunteers but we had 34, within 4 days we were over 50. We called the organizers and let them know and they asked us to no longer accept any more volunteers as they had too many to have to accomodate and find tasks for. Well being who we are, we figured we'd find a way. We stopped recruiting but the calls kept coming in. Who needed rides? Where is everyone meeting? Could they bring a friend? or 3? We said "f**k it"...with a total of 68 volunteers we had to start saying "no mas" our President Naomie would say "Never ever underestimate how much we can accomplish, even in a crunch." Diego our VP and Jorge our Director of Environmental Initiatives, brought in Melissa from Hawthorne High, who alone brought 13 volunteers and expanded our reach out of the South Bay. So, we showed up with 18 over our extended quota and worked. Diego kept saying "F**k it, oh well, we're showing up!"...and we did. We had so many volunteers that the entire gym was just ours & our group overflowed to the outside walls. Check out more pics in the gallery and insta @lets.give
