Today I went to the American Heart Association’s (AHA) walk at Children’s Fairyland in Oakland. Children’s Fairyland is the name of the park, or at least I’m sure.
I thought of the idea of going to this walk a week ago. I sent an email to the American Heart Association Bay Area a long time ago, but I got now response. So y’know what, I’m going to meet with them in person.
My goal for going to the walk was to connect with people. I had to convince my mom that this walk was worth missing school, but I think she was in a good mood.
My mom dropped me off at the park, and it was pretty confusing. I think I was the only kid there. I wandered around and it seemed there were a lot of corporate employees.
I was too scared to go up to anyone, but my mom was kind of boss. She went up to the volunteer tent and blatantly said “Hi, Justin wants to volunteer for you” and gave me a shove. I then met someone that gave me their business card.
My mom was talking to a guy, and when I got there I saw they were talking about healthy habits. He emphasized that eating healthy is important. He’s a bodybuilder, and he showed me a picture of him when he was 17 (in his prime).
When the rally started, the mayor came up to the podium to speak. She introduced herself as the mayor of Oakland, and she also said she was a Skyline High School alumni. I thought, “Hey, that’s where I took my SAT!” Anyways, she declared October 10 Thrive day in Oakland because of all the support Kaiser Permanente provided to the city.
After the opening speeches, I met the CEO of the American Heart Association Bay Area. I gave her my business card, but I have to say I’m shy of giving away my business card (it makes advocacy seem like a corporation). It was awesome meeting her because I accomplished my goal of the day!
I didn’t plan to participate in all of the walk because I had to return to school, but before I went my mom decided to grab some food from the food trucks. Unfortunately, since the food trucks require a ticket that you received when you registered for the walk, we couldn’t get food. My mom said yesterday, “No, it’s fine, we can register at the walk.” But there was no place to register.
This really nice lady offered us free tickets for the food truck. God, the food was amazing. It was some great eggplant, chicken, and rice concoction.
So I unfortunately had to go back to school. I came back later than expected and wound up in the middle of math. My classmate saw I posted the story on social media and asked me how was it. I said “good.”
