Crawling for a Cause

Is there a place where drinking meets philanthropy? Where beer enthusiasts and do-gooders can collaborate to make the world a better place? Indeed there is! This Saturday, April 6th, good hearted bar-goers from all over Columbus, Ohio united in drink for a cause at the 4th Annual Crawl Against Cancer in Memory of Mary A. Stoltzfus. The Crawl raises a significant amount of money every year for Pelotonia and Relay for Life, two fantastic charities that raise money for cancer research. 

Dr. Fus speaks to fellow volunteers 
about covert inner-crawl operations.

In its 4th year, this event is organized by Dr. Matt Stoltzfus (affectionately referred to as "Dr. Fus" by his students) in memoriam of his mother, Mary Stoltzfus, who passed away from cancer. I took Dr. Fus' General Chemistry class last year and have worked with him on a number of projects, so I jumped at the opportunity to people-watch charitable drunk bar crawlers under the guise of volunteering at his event. I joined twenty-some volunteers in setting up shop in our respective assigned bars on the crawl to ensure the event went smoothly, and patrons stumbled in the right direction. It was my first year volunteering at this event, which made for an enlightening experience. I was fortunate to be paired with a veteran of the event, Karl, who was able to show me the ropes.

The first, and most sober O-H-I-O of the event.
I'm the over-enthusiastic one in purple.

Karl and I manned the station at Charlie Bear (a bar/night-club), putting on wristbands and handing out drink tickets. At the event, each captain was responsible for putting together a team of ten people. Each team member paid 35$ to join the crawl, which came with a t-shirt and beer at every location. Teams had the option to go on north or south campus bar routes. The crawl went from 1-5pm after which there was an after party. It was great to see so many bars participate in this event (see credits below for a full list).

I was also tasked with the challenge of getting as many people to tweet drunken O-H-I-O's to the @osucancercrawl twitter page. Dr. Fus arranged for the best one to receive a neon bar sign from the Columbus Distributing Company. The digression in spelling was evident as the crawl progressed, and by the last stop it was difficult to tell I's from H's. Next year, we will aim for more complex words and see how far crawlers can get. 

This O-H-I-O struggled to take form.

The Crawl was a creative angle in combating a disease that touches many. Dr. Fus' innovative philanthropy event inspires me to find new ways to raise money for causes. It is so good to see this event as part of the family of awesome, avant-garde OSU and Columbus fundraising events akin to Buckeyethon (24-hour dance marathon) and Pelotonia (bike marathon). Through my googling I learned there is also a national Crawl for Cancer that does an event in Columbus (check out http://www.crawlforcancer.org). Take note parents: maybe a good way to raise money for sending your kids to college, and have some fun while at it.

Some crawlers, like this guy, had excellent taste in track jackets. 

Glad to take part in this event, and I can't wait for the 5th annual next year!

Zach

Credits:

Dr. Fus for organizing the event and for retweeting my ridiculous pictures documenting the event.

The bars: Little Bar, Out R Inn, Donato's, Sloppy Donkey, Chumley's, Too's, The O Patio, Midway, Big Bar, Charlie Bear, Ugly Tuna, Kildare's, and Lucky's for taking part in the crawl.

Jeptha Davenport for his terrific travel post and the "Flexible" Blog Pact of 2013.

Making a Difference Before We are "Adults"

For the past couple weeks, I have been reading Mountains Beyond Mountains by Tracy Kidder. The book is a deep look into the work of Dr. Paul Farmer, a physician specializing in infectious disease, who has accomplished great work in Haiti and several other third world countries. You can check out some of his work at his non-profit's website, Partners in Health (http://www.pih.org/).

Farmer is a fantastic physician, and an incredible human being for the selfless work he does every day. His noble values and unyielding motivation are amazing to read. What stood out most about what Farmer has accomplished are not his actions per se, but the time period he got involved in his work. Farmer was reading extensively about Haiti, learning its history, and beginning to travel to the country in college! By the time he was in medical school at Harvard, Farmer was flying to Haiti regularly to do medical work. He established his non-profit "Partners in Health" to help fund his work in Haiti in 1983, he was 24.

While it is easy to write off Farmer of as uniquely exceptional, I refuse to believe that it is impossible to do what he has done. And I don't mean medical work. While we can't all start non-profits in Haiti, I think it is very possible for each one of us to find our passion, start running for it, and never look back. Dr. Farmer inspires me to work for my passions even when I haven't "earned my stripes" yet. It is still possible to build programs and organizations and actively change the world, even without a D-R dot or any sort of certification. If you believe you can accomplish things, you can.

I think of how John Mayer's song, "Waiting on the World to Change" always bothered me for some reason. Mayer sang about how we are all "waiting on the world to change" because it is "hard to beat the system when we're standing at a distance." We may never be able to fix the entire system, but Farmer inspires me to try to fix one thing we are passionate about. Regardless of where we are, who we are, or how qualified we may be if we are passionate about something, we can channel that passion into action and change things. Lets not wait on things to change while we sit idly, but be change agents in our organizations, schools, and work places.

Ghandi once said, "Be the change you want to see in the world." Dr. Farmer is proof of how one person could be that change.

Credits:

Mountains beyond Mountains by Tracy Kidder [Amazon Link]
Jeptha for the Blogger Pact of 2013