Volunteering: AZ Dragon Boat Race, Phoenix

Mitch wearing my shoveralls.. We didn't let him leave the house.

Jon and his face blanket.

Jon with the meats!

Ryan and Ellie

Andrew taught us how to dance--we learned the "stanky leg," "duggie," and .. something else, I don't remember right now. But here he is breaking it down with Jess.

Jess tries to beat Katie in arm wrestling, but no girl has been able to beat her yet.

Scoots and Jose--Jose attempting an intimidating stare. Jose happens to be one of the gentlest people I've ever met, so the intimidating stare was pretty ineffectual.

Erm.. Daniel found this in Jon's bathroom I think?

Hi CREC friends!

Two dragon boats--they seat twenty paddlers, one drummer, and one person steering.

Dan is excited

One of the competing teams. The seriously competitive teams were intimidating--UCLA won pretty much every heat and the paddlers were incredibly buff. 

Happy Daniel

Turns out Ellie and I both have green Chacos

This dude was a paddler for a male team, and the drummer for a female team. He only wore the skirt while leading the female team.

Sitting down during a break, thanks to a long heat.

Shari, the Marshall.

Ryan and Ellie say, "THAT WAY TO THE LIQUIDS!"

Andrew and his strong arms make sure everybody is in the boat. He and I worked out in between loading/unloading competitors. Today I can't really walk up and down stairs thanks to a squat-off. Heh.

Ryan, Jamie, and Alexis.

    This past break, I got in 31.5 volunteer hours. 24 of these hours were spent at the AZ Dragon Boat Race in Phoenix. It was beautiful--sunny skies and fit people everywhere. There were 18 CREC volunteers, and we made up the majority of the total volunteers. Most of us worked the docks, where we helped people in and out of boats, and tried to empty out water from the bases of the boats between races. There were a variety of teams. The most competitive teams were university teams, primarily from California. The ones that stand out the most to me were the USC and UCLA teams. The young men and women on these teams were incredibly powerful and buff. I think a number of us found ourselves staring at firm half-naked bodies and forgetting that we were supposed to be doing some sort of volunteering activity. The university teams were also primarily comprised of Asian-American students. On the mixed UCLA team, 18 of the 20 paddlers were of Asian descent.

     Aside from the university teams, there was a corporate division and a survivor division. The corporate division had teams from banks like Wells Fargo, among other very business-y places. The survivor division was for cancer survivors, primarily female breast cancer survivors. 

     All 18 of the CRECers who went down to volunteer stayed at Jon's place. He is a CREC crew supervisor, and lives with his girlfriend Hannah in Phoenix. He owns a beautiful townhome that his grandfather passed down to him. Jon and Hannah were incredibly hospitable. Housing 18 people is not an easy task. They bought over five cases of beer and made a ton of food for us, and refused any money. Hannah is a grad student studying urban planning, and after this term Jon is going to start law school. Anyway, each day we had to be up by 5:30am to get to the lake by 6:00am. We volunteered each day from 6-6, which was quite difficult because each night was spent in a packed house with a ton of beer and each day was spent in nonstop sun next to a lake. Ha. Overall, it was an awesome weekend, though tiring!