Orientation

Last week, we spent an evening at PMC headquarters in Needham MA. It was for a required orientation meeting that focused on logistics, training information and inspirational stories. To be quite honest, I was thinking that this would be a waste of time, but I went in with an open mind. As everyone filtered into the back part of the PMC's office, basically a large warehouse, Megan and I looked around to see what other PMCers looked like. Most were what you would expect: white, heterosexual, mix of male/female, 40s - 50s, primarily white collar. There were also some that were much older and much younger in the group as well with a few different races sprinkled in there for good measure. Megan and I did feel quite young: bonus! But of course, it's not about who is participating, it is simply that there are 5,460 people riding this August with another 1,865 volunteers.

At the end of the night, I found that the most valuable portion of the night was indeed the inspirational stories. We heard a variety of stories from the beginning of the PMC to a cancer survivor to someone who works day-in and day-out with kids at Dana Farber. I stand corrected and was glad to have been in the presence of such inspirational, hard-working, compassionate people.


June is almost upon us and this will signal a ramp up in both training and fundraising as the number of sunny days increases (fingers crossed).