Growing up, my mom put me in soccer for exposure to team sports. Seemed like a good enough idea; soccer is great for making friends, learning to work with others, and exercise. With that being said, no one pushed me to play it in high school, or try and play professionally. In almost every other country other than the US, that is not the case. More commonly named “football” to most, soccer both the most played and highly attended sport in the world. People go as crazy for soccer as we do for American football. Fans from all over the world can be seen painting their bodies, shaving their heads, and wearing their favorite player’s jersey.
Soccer’s biggest event, the World Cup, features teams representing their countries from all across the globe to compete for the chance to be the best country in the world. Admittedly, despite having played soccer as a child, I have not followed it, that is until this year. To my surprise, the World Cup has been pretty amazing. One call, one missed shot has such an impact on the game you’re at the edge of your seat the whole time! I soon realized via Twitter that I wasn’t the only one; friends and family members have called me screaming after their team won or upset because they lost. I’m going for Team USA, and though I don’t know who will win in the end, what I do know is that I will be glued to my TV until the final on July 11th. Let’s go USA!!!
What is your favorite team in the World Cup?
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After hearing news of the BP oil spill almost a month ago, I figured the company would take responsibility, find a solution, and close the leak-I’m still waiting. I can’t believe that after all this time little to no progress has been made regarding the oil spill – it is a true travesty. Animal life is dying and water is being contaminated. Yet, and still, both the President and BP have stood by as if they are waiting on someone else to fix it.
President Obama took a trip to the Gulf to survey all the damage and potential damage to the area, vowing to “fight back with all we’ve got”. What I want to know is, why haven’t we been doing that the whole time? Even worse was BP’s reaction to the situation. After not only refusing to take full responsibility at the onset of the problem, it is now coming out that BP made a series of bad decisions prior to the spill that may have lead to the disaster. Not only did they decide to use a cheaper casing for the well, and to use fewer centralizers to save time, but there were also several tests related to the cementing job not conducted by BP to save time.
It’s a shame that it has taken public scrutiny to make both the administration and BP seem to take notice to what’s going on. I expected more from them. One thing I know for sure is that I will not soon forget the President’s lack of leadership, or BP’s lack of integrity.
Do you agree with the way President Obama has handled the oil spill?
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I came across an article in Parade magazine by Stephanie Paterik on some outstanding students from around the country making a difference in their communities. And, for the first time, Parade has partnered with the national youth-service organization The LEAGUE to honor these special students for their service. They, along with the U.S. Department of Education, will hold a ceremony for the 15 winners of nominated students in the following areas: economics, the environment, education, community, and health.
When I began to read the background of some of the potential winners, I was amazed at what people so young could accomplish and how great of an impact they are making around them. For example, Akshay Damany, after watching a documentary on autism, decided that tennis could help improve coordination in autistic children. He now teaches tennis to autistic kids in Pennsylvania. Another amazing student is Blake O’Connor, who held a children’s book drive, and recruited classmates to read to second graders at low-income schools in Tampa, Fla.
To see young adults making such an effort is an inspiration. They could be at home or hanging out with friends. Instead they are doing their part to become future leaders of the world.
What area would you like to make a difference in for your community?
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Yesterday afternoon, as you may already be aware, we hosted our Hoops of Hope Shoot-a-thon. What we did not publicly emphasize was that, for fun and to drive up the donations even further, we made it an inter-office competition among the Affinity4 staff. Each Team of 10 employees reached out to friends, family and colleagues to solicit donations on behalf of our efforts. In addition, we had prizes for best team name, best team uniform, most money raised by team, and best team spirit.
The roof of our parking garage was quite noisy yesterday – we sure know how to have a good time! We had a DJ on site to keep the energy up with great music – but I think he ended up trying to keep up with US! Local news channels were there to cover the story – you can see video of that by clicking here.
We had a great time, raised a lot of money for a great cause – over $4,300!! Even our CEO worked up a sweat shooting hoops – a game of 4-on-4 broke out after the shoot-a-thon was over. I can’t wait to see what volunteer event we participate in next!
What’s your favorite way to volunteer?
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