Since Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday, being away from home was extra hard for me on this special day. A typical Thanksgiving would consist of running in the Manchester road race with all of my closest friends, then off to my Aunt’s house where we would eat, nap, play board games and repeat all day long. To be honest I was pretty sad knowing I wouldn’t be with family and friends. Although it was tough, it meant the world to me to able to reunite with my Sport Changes Life family up in Belfast.
Happiness is an understatement of how I felt seeing all 22 of the other victory scholars again. The last time we had all been together was when we first arrived in Ireland. The morning of Thanksgiving, we all woke up and started the walk to The Welcome Organization, a homeless shelter in Belfast where we would be volunteering for the day. I’ve always been really passionate about volunteering so this was something I was looking forward to. We were given a brief talk about the organization and the impact it has on the community. The next few hours were spent sorting through clothes that would be donated to individuals in need. There was nothing but smiles and laughs from everyone, enjoying our time together and helping as much as we could. That night Sport Changes Life was nice enough to organize a Thanksgiving for dinner for us, trying to make us feel as much at home as possible. After we ate, they gave us the best surprise of all. On the big screen were videos from family and friends of all the victory scholars. I won’t lie, I’m pretty sure I had tears in my eyes from the beginning of the video. Tears of joy, tears from laughing so hard, and tears of gratitude. I left Belfast the next day feeling so unbelievably grateful for my family, friends and this experience that Sport Changes Life has given me.
