Much More Than A Race

Ok, so I know that this is really a racing and training blog for the Trek Mountain Girl, you know, that’s me. I also know that the subject I’m going to write about is not a race or any kind of training, but I think that it’s important to write this post. If you really think about this event, you will see that if it weren’t for the people that we honored today, I most likely wouldn’t have the freedom or opportunity to race any time I want to.

So here goes, today I spent a few hours taking photos of the Edwardsville High School Cheerleaders, I know, if you know me, you know I’m always doing this because my daughter China is a cheerleader, but today was the final event of an ongoing project the cheerleaders have been spending their time on.

You see, the Cheerleaders spend at least 10 hours each per season, doing some kind of community service. Just this year they helped out with the Miles for Meso 5k, which donates all its proceeds to Mesothelioma Applied Research Foundation. It was a great event, and the girls were a tremendous help. So that was just the start of their community service for this season, the next project was for the veterans. The idea was to make blankets for the veterans residing in the nursing homes in the area. Once the idea was born, the girls found a way to make the project a success.

To fund this project the girls held a chicken dinner at the local moose hall, they each sold tickets to the event, took donations and also prepared desserts to sell. The girls decorated the the hall, and themselves, in a patriotic manner.



They dished out chicken, mashed potatoes and veggies to the customers, and they sold so many fabulous desserts.

They had made so many desserts that they could not sell them all, so when the dinner was over they delivered the leftovers to the area fire and police stations. The Fireman and Police force were all very grateful.


Now, they had made a very large amount of money and with that money, they bought fleece material, enough to make 24 blankets. What better way to spend an evening after practice then to have a pizza and blanket making party. So the coach, who I know has to be crazy, had about 38 girls in her house eating pizza and making blankets. I was there and I lived the craziness, I’m not sure how that coach isn’t in the insane asylum right now.


That said, they are a pretty darn good group of girls and they got to work and made some blankets. That was after checking out the coaches house and getting in her shower, where I think they broke something.


So now here we are just 3 days until Christmas and the girls are delivering blankets to veterans at the area nursing homes. Some of the veterans were very alert and happy to see them, while others were not quite with us one hundred percent.



I have to say, these crazy girls really made me proud today, they treated everyone with respect and kindness, whether the veteran really understood what was going on or not, they all made the effort to say Thank You and Merry Christmas. Although, they are still teenagers and when the residents of one of the homes were playing bingo, they all wanted to go play bingo too. We told them, that any time they wanted to come back, I’m sure that the residents would love to have them play bingo with them. I guess the cheerleader’s next project will be bingo with the elderly.

To see all the project pictures click here