Leukemia and Lymphoma Walk: a Personal Experience

On February 2nd, 2013 at Chicago Academy High School I participated in the Leukemia Lymphoma walk in the cold walk-a-thon. It was a great experience, and I’m glad I choose it as a service learning project. We walked around the neighborhood according to the map we were provided earlier. I chose to serve this organization because I wanted to help the people who have Leukemia & Lymphoma. I felt that raising 40 dollars and walking 3 miles was the least I could do for the children who have to go through all the medical treatments and procedures.

To prepare myself for this service I ate breakfast and got dressed for the cold weather. I ate cereal and a grapefruit for breakfast because I was too lazy to make anything that morning. I needed to go to my basement and find my winter boots to make sure my feet wouldn’t freeze in the cold weather. I put on my gloves, hat, and coat and then I was ready to go. I arrived at the school around 12 PM, and then we started to walk after everyone turned in their forms and permission slips.

This service learning project did not connect to any of my 7 classes; although, it did allow me to work on my communication skills in a way. It would have been boring to just walk and not talk to anyone so I was talking to people while I was walking. The whole experience was positive. I thought that a group of students coming together for this cause was great. The only negative thing I could think of would probably be the cold. I’ll make sure to bring a scarf next year.

To prepare myself for this project I had to set my alarm the night before to make sure I didn’t oversleep. I also had to make sure I was ready to go out in the cold. The project was not very demanding. I did step out of my comfort zone by asking others for money to donate to the Leukemia Lymphoma Society. I’m not very used to asking others for money, but I knew the money was for others so it wasn’t really that much of a problem.

The experience taught me that there are a lot of diseases people don’t know about, and we should all learn about them so we can better help each other. I did not know about Leukemia or Lymphoma and this project taught me what both of those diseases were. It made me very glad to be able to help. I believe if more people knew what these diseases were and how they affect others they would surely want to help as much as they could. The community benefitted from this experience by learning what the diseases are. When I asked for people to donate I was able to explain what Leukemia and Lymphoma are and they learned about these diseases and were happy to donate to the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, knowing it would help children and families in need.